Circumstance and problems of the Romanian agriculture after the revolution in 1989

The total production of the Romanian agriculture has generally decreased since the revolution in 1989, except some crops such as sunflower or corn. Before the revolution, especially in 1980's, high productivity was recorded in agriculture and stock breeding sectors, and products were exported to get foreign currency. These sectors took a very important role to return the national debt. However, the regime of agriculture changed considerably after the revolution in December 1989. State farms, co-operative farms and state corporations of stockbreeding have been privatized. According to the privatizing land law issued in 1991, the lands of such farms were returned to the original landowners whose lands were associated by the previous government. As the result, farmlands were divided into very small parts, and tremendous small fanners appeared, whose lands were under 3 or 5 ha. They don't have enough capital, agricultural machines and techniques for farming. It is very difficult for them to rehabilitate the agricultural machines such as tractor, combine, seedling machines, etc., to buy agricultural chemicals, and to pay the charge of irrigation water. The feeble regime of agriculture after the revolution, thus, has caused the reduction of productivity. Irrigation systems, such as huge pumping station and canal, were constructed mainly along the Danube River, and irrigable farm had been developed up to around 3 million ha under the communist government. Economical electric charge depending on imported and domestic cheap oil, and student's labor in summer vacation contributed to the implementation of irrigation during the communist period. Nowadays, however, many of the pumping stations have already lost their function by destruction and/or superannuating. Furthermore, many of farmers don't have irrigation equipments, and cannot pay the water charge. After the revolution in 1989, therefore, irrigated area was maximum 1170,000 ha in 1996, and has been around 100,000 ha in recent years. The decrease of irrigated area has also resulted feasible productivity of crops. The Romanian government recognized again the importance of irrigation systems facing the historical drought in 2000. The Ministry of Agriculture and Food of Romanian government is ready to rehabilitate the irrigation systems and supports to assemble the water users association, at present. The Romanian government needs huge budget for the restructure of agriculture, and EU provides the non-reimbursable loan of 150 million Euros annually to support the Romanian agriculture by SAPARD Program from 2000 to 2006. The World Bank also provides some reimbursable loans, and not only Japan but also USA and some countries of EU have cooperated by the technical cooperation projects to support the Romanian agriculture. I expect the recovery of the Romanian agriculture by such international cooperations.