760,000 Romanian farmers applied for area subsidies in 2023.
Farmers in Romania submitted almost 760,000 payment applications for an area of almost 10 million hectares in the 2023 campaign, which ended on 9 June, according to the data provided by the Paying and Intervention Agency for Agriculture (APIA). 'APIA informs that between 1 March and 9 June 2023, a total of 759 906 payment applications were submitted for an area of over 9.98 million hectares.
These figures indicate the upward trend noticeable in recent years in terms of increasing the association of farmers and land consolidation, in order to develop a more efficient and, therefore, more profitable agriculture,' notes the source.
Indeed, since Romania joined the EU in 2007, the number of subsidy applications submitted for area payments has continuously decreased, showing a rather slow but steady consolidation and farm size growth. However, most of the 760,000 applicants remain very small in terms of farm size.
According to the 2020 agricultural census, Romania has 2.9 million agricultural holdings (down from 3.4 million in 2016) and a total utilised agricultural area (UAA) of some 13 million ha, resulting into an average UAA per holding of 4.4 ha (compared to the 15 ha average in the EU and 32 ha average in the Netherlands).
Recently, Nicu Vasile, the president of the Romanian League of Agricultural Producers’ Associations (LAPAR) was quoted as saying: “Today we speak about digitalisation. But we have the same number of land plots like in 1907. How can one do digitalisation on half a hectare?”. He also complained that the land consolidation process is hampered by the lack of enabling legislation.
In addition “Romanians developed in the last 33 years [of democracy] a rather individualist spirit” and they are rather reluctant to associate, says Vasile. He also gave an example of how the lack of association limits the competitiveness of Romanian farmers. "I attended a debate on agriculture where family farms from the US were invited. One family worked 7,000 hectares of land, three brothers. They also had 1,200 cows. One such farmer, in one way or another, is a colleague of mine, but also a competitor. Do you think that with two hectares, split in five plots, I will be able to face that competitor?", Nicu Vasile asked rhetorically.