“Good economic performance is achieved by cooperatives which pursue innovative entrepreneurial business strategies and add value to their produce through processing and marketing,” Christian Pees, Cogeca president says in the report.
Romanian cooperatives account for just several percent of the 8.3 million hectares of arable land in Romania and revenue is at least ten times lower than in Germany, France, Poland and UK, economies whose products compete with Romania’s for shelf space in European stores and on the international grain market.
Local agricultural cooperatives are taking the first steps towards creating joint systems to purchase fertilizers, seeds and pesticides and sell their crops, after two decades during which land was given back to its owners before the communist regime and former state-run collective farms disbanded.
In SE Romania, Dobrogea Sud, the largest cooperative in the country by revenue (EUR10 million in 2013) is an organization of 12 farmers and operates as a purchasing and sales platform for 24,000 hectares. The cooperative started five years ago and the farms comprising it range between 300 and 1,600 hectares. The idea behind this cooperative was to give farmers a greater negotiating power before suppliers and customers.
Another cooperative, Vlasca 2008 in Giurgiu County, comprises 39 members who farm 25,000 hectares. Their reason for creating this structure is the same.
The two examples only serve to show Romanian farmers are taking the first steps towards joint farming, since no local cooperative has made joint investments in storage and processing infrastructure and in innovative technologies yet.
The Romanian agricultural cooperatives are not doing very well when considered from a European perspective, given that some of the biggest cooperatives in the mature economies in the West dictate market trends and have already taken definite steps towards an international presence.
One such example is the position of major European cooperatives on the Romanian agri-food market. Netherland’s FrieslandCampina is among the top ten companies on the dairy market and has three plants in Romania in Cluj and Mures.
France-held Limagrain, Maisadour and Euralis sell seeds produced by their research departments. Austria’s Agrana and its French rival Tereos are vying for the top spot on the local sugar market, while Danish Crown (Denmark), Vion Food (Netherlands) and Westfleish are traditional suppliers of meat for cold cuts plants in Romania.
The largest cooperative in Europe is Germany’s Bay Wa, whose revenue stands at EUR16 billion revenue and operations include grain trade and distribution of farm equipment to small farmers.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)