Farmers want precise measures for agriculture

Employers in the agriculture sector and food industry are asking for a 5-9 percent reduction in value added tax (VAT) on agricultural products in order to counter tax evasion, currently extremely high in the baked goods and cold meats production sectors.

Furthermore, businesspeople and representatives of employer unions are requesting precise short-term measures from Agriculture Minister Ilie Sarbu to solve their main problems - namely timely payments of subsidies for agriculture, difficult access to European funds, and repair work needed on the obsolete irrigation system.


Top producers in the agriculture, milling and baked goods fields yesterday met Sarbu for a Private Government meeting organized by Business Standard.

“Mr. Minister, let us talk about what exactly you are going to do tomorrow to help out farmers,” said Ioan Niculae, President of Interagro group, with significant operations in agriculture. With an 8 percent quota in gross domestic product (GDP), and considered “a priority for the government”, according to Sarbu, Romania’s agriculture is still not competitive. Only 35 percent of the country’s fertile land is farmed by major producers of foodstuffs, while the remainder belongs to farmers who either produce only the necessary crops for consumption or leave their plots unfarmed. Some two million hectares of fertile land of the total 9 million hectares available in Romania are unused at this time, according to the minister. Other estimates mention surfaces totaling some 4 million hectares.

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