Romania is followed in the ranking of the amount of farmland per inhabitant by Spain with 0.5 hectares, France with 0.43 hectares and Poland with 0.4 hectares.
A farmer who works 6,000 square meters of land should harvest 1.7 tons of wheat, or 2.4 tons of corn from each crop, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. If calculated in money terms, the production would be worth EUR370 in the case of wheat and EUR535 in the case of corn, considering international prices. Were the same amount of land used to grow potatoes, a farmer should collect around EUR6,000 for each harvest (12 tons for 2 lei per kilo).
The money does not end up in the Romanian economy as agriculture is still being dragged down by land fragmentation, equipment shortages or by the fact that at least one million hectares are left untilled each year.
“The farming area allotted to the existing population should be an advantage. However, almost all our farms are semi-subsistence ones and more than 50% of plots are part of farms of below 10 hectares,” stated Lucian Anghel, chief economist with Banca Comerciala Romana (BCR).
Moreover, Anghel explained Romania would continue to be vulnerable to international prices of agri-food products as long as farmers produced for self-consumption.
However, Romania could have double its current agricultural output and three times its exports should it reach the yields/hectare of Western European farmers, BCR data reveal.
Last year, wheat output reached 5.7 million tons and corn production hit 9 million tons, while the overall value of wheat and corn exports amounted to almost EUR800 million. In money terms, a doubling of production of wheat and corn would translate into almost EUR6 billion added to the economy, according to ZF estimates.
Agriculture is likely to contribute 0.3% to GDP growth this year taking into account total estimated growth of 2%, estimates Anghel.
(English version by Cătălina Apostoiu, Editing by Loredana Frățilă-Cristescu)