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APIA director: We cannot talk about performance in agriculture with small lands
Farming lands in Romania are fragmented and we cannot talk about performance in agriculture with 2-3 ha of land, although this year we noticed a joining tendency, the general director of APIA, Danile Constantin said. “Land division is a specific of Romanian agriculture. Over 80% of farmers have lands less than 5 hectares. It is then natural to wonder whether it is a survival agriculture and not a performance one, meant to contribute to economic growth,” the general director of APIA said at the seminar “Mediafax talks about Romanian Agriculture”. He showed that compared to 2007, there has been a tendency of joining lands, reflected in the growth of the area for which per hectare payment was requested, from 9.4 million ha to 9.5 million ha, although the number of demands dropped by over 100,000 to 1.121 million requests. Only 1% of farmers own over 50% of the area for which they presented financing requests. They will receive 50% of funds allocated by the European Commission for Romania in this program”, Constantin added. He mentioned that this year APIA paid farmers 1 billion euros in this program, this form of support being very important for the 1% farmers who handed in their applications. “We cannot talk about performance in agriculture with 2-3 ha of land or 2-3 animals. Producers should be encouraged to produce for the market and not just for consumption,” Constantin said.