Moldovan agriculture bears losses worth over five billion lei in 2015

Chisinau, 12 November /MOLDPRES/ - The losses born by farmers in 2015 are assessed at over five billion lei by non-governmental associations in the sector. 

At a news conference held in Chisinau today, the head of the UniAgroProtect union of agricultural producers' associations, Alexandru Slusari, said that more factors had triggered a dramatic worsening of the situation in agriculture.    

According to Slusari, because of a quick depreciation of the Moldovan leu in last spring, the prices for resources necessary for agricultural production (fertilizers, phytosanitary products, diesel oil, seed material, spare parts, etc.) increased by 30-40 per cent, and the interests on loans have doubled, reaching 25-26 per cent, so that the number of loans for farmers have been reduced considerably. 

At the same time, Alexandru Slusari stressed that the excessive drought from this year inflicted great damage to spring crops and orchards, with the harvest being by at least 60 per cent poorer than in 2014.

This notwithstanding, Slusari said, "the state's authorities have undertaken no palpable action to support farmers, and the claims filed at the protests organised by the latter were ignored. Moreover, the farmers have not received the subsidies for 2015 and a good deal of them have not raised the subsidies for 2014 too."

"Neither the compensations for 2014 have been provided, due to be received by fruit growers with orchards larger than 15 hectares. Also, the project "Livada Moldovei" (Moldova's Orchard) was not launched and the accessing of the Polish loan has become problematic, although there are 6-7 eligible projects. Instead, the import of dairy and meat products from Ukraine was doubled, and the value added tax (VAT) on animal production grew by 20 per cent. At the same time, we cannot ignore the fact that no law of the agricultural package that we proposed has been adopted," the head of the UniAgroProtect union said.   

The executive director of the National Farmers' Federation, Vasile Mirzenco, said these problems were the consequences of the corruption deeds at the state level. "We want to eliminate this corruption. If some corrupt persons are not removed from the political circuit, the situation will worsen even more," Vasile Mirzenco added. 

The farmers came up with a public message, thereby demanding that the future candidate for the office of prime minister, besides consultations due to have with the parliamentary factions, should also have meetings with representatives of non-governmental associations in the agriculture sector, and the candidacy for the post of agriculture minister should be coordinated with the concerned representatives.

(Reporter. N. Roibu, editor A. Raileanu)