The highest subsidies went to Dutch-held group Dn Agrar, which collected about EUR800,000 via its two farms, Dn Agrar Apold and Lacto Agrar.
Dn Agrar Apold cattle farm ended the year with 30.4 million lei (EUR6.8 million) revenue, down almost 16% on 2014 and about RON680,000 loss, according to Finance Ministry data. Lacto Agrar posted 18% growth in revenue to RON21.7 million in 2015. Dn Agrar’s manager, Jan Gijsbertus de Boer, turned down ZF’s request for comment.
The integrated production system is the key to development in the agribusiness sector, the largest cattle owners say, adding that if they had relied on dairy cattle farming alone, they would have gone out of business due to the low price of liter of milk.
“I think those that do not have the land to grow fodder and have low milk production cannot live off cattle. Two farms in Buzau and Braila have been recently dissolved because of this,” Gavrila Tuchilus, shareholder of Agrimat Matca told ZF.
“Agrimat Matca works more than 4,500 hectares of arable land on which it grows wheat, barley, rapeseed, corn, sunflower, soy, alfalfa, 100 hectares of vineyard and has more than 1,000 head of Holstein cows. We raise cattle for milk and to sell the heifers to small and large farmers. Our milk production stands at more than 4.5 million liters, which we sell to processors in Romania.”
Agrimat Matca posted RON22.4 million revenue in 2015, down 8% on 2014.
Dimitrie Musca, owner of Combinatul Agroindustrial Curtici, a EUR25 million business, says the integrated production system helped him avoid losses and unsold product inventories.
“We’ve never had any problem and no unsold inventories because we have an integrated system, land, livestock, the dairy plant and stores.”
His business collected more than EUR130,000 for the 1,250 cows in 2015.
Subsidies in 2015 stood at RON117 per ton of milk and RON430 per head of beef cattle, according to APIA.
There were 2.08 million head of cattle in Romania on June 1, 2016, an increase of 0.2% on the same time in 2015, according to the National Statistics Institute. (EUR1=RON4.4519)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)