RSS
Agriculture: Wheat, corn, rapeseed and sunflower crops, lower than in 2014 because of the drought
Wheat, corn, rapeseed and sunflower crops this year will be far lower than in 2014 because of the drought; the situation is the grimmest in the counties of Vaslui, Bacau, Botosani, Olt and in the south-east of Banat region, Laurentiu Baciu, president of the League of Romanian Agricultural Producers' Associations (LAPAR) told Agerpres on Wednesday.
"The crop is far below that of last year; I am referring to the already harvested crops, specifically to wheat and rapeseed. The sunflower and corn crops are still in the field, but there is no time to recover because of the drought. The situation is worst in the counties of Vaslui, Bacau, Botosani, in south-eastern Banat and in Olt County. Conversely, Ialomita, Braila and Calarasi County, which also had some rainfall, are better off. In the most affected counties the corn crop is almost fully damaged, and the sunflower crop incurred loss between 50 and 60 percent. The wheat output is half the amount last year, whereas the rapeseed crop will be 20 - 25 percent lower than in 2014," Laurentiu Baciu said.
According to him, the authorities could offer an aggregate one billion euros in state aid to drought-hit farmers.
"It would be normal for the authorities to come up with state aid, but this depends on the European Regulation that provides that the aid should be of maximum 0.6 percent of the GDP. Yet even under observation of this regulation, a combined one billion lei could be disbursed in state aid nationwide, but for this the responsible committees must convene to ascertain the precise value of the damage and the affected areas; all the committees have done so far have been information reports on drought. It would have been best not to let 90 percent of the irrigation system into decay, as just 300,000 hectares are still irrigated out of an initial total of 3.3 million," added the LAPAR president.
The Pro Agro National Federation on Friday called on the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development for support to set up a state-aid scheme to offset the 2015 drought damage taken by vegetable farmers.
The scheme should be implemented urgently, according to Pro Agro representatives, so that the necessary cash may be paid out in a reasonable amount time to allow farmers to resume the production cycle.