MICRO REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
Briefly Overview
Romania has an agricultural capacity of approximately 14,7 million hectares, of which only 10 million are used as arable land. In November 2008, an evaluation revealed that 6.8 million hectares are not used.
Agriculture summed up about 6% of GDP in 2007, down from 12.6% in 2004. As of August 2009, approximately 3 million Romanians (close to 30% of the country's workforce) are employed in agriculture, compared to 4-5% in other Western countries. Mechanization is comparatively poor, with one tractor available for every 54 hectares, while the EU average is one tractor for every 13 hectares. Approximately 170,000 tractors exist in Romania, of which about 80% are aging or obsolete. Unlike Western Europe, where tractors are replaced after 3,000-4,000 hours of use, in Romania they sometimes last up to 12,000 hours
The main problems encountered by Romanian agriculturists are a lack of major investments in agriculture, due to difficulty in accessing available funds, fragmentation and erosion of soil, property-related lawsuits and obsolete technology. Romanian products often fail to meet EU quality standards, which explains their absence on foreign markets, while foreign products are readily available in shops across Romania. Several major companies have entered the Romanian market, including Smithfield Foods,Cargill, Bunge, Glencore, Lactalis and Meggle. These companies have since invested hundreds of millions of euros in Romania.
Highlights
1. High potential along with rising prices of agricultural products on international markets are likely to maintain foreign investors’ interest towards Romanian agriculture
2. Romania has the highest level of family labour force in agriculture in EU 27; low investment rates have left the local agriculture sector at the nature’ mercy and induced an erratic development
3. Highly fragmented land holdings represented a major setback in attracting new investments and affected significantly productivity gains
4. The sector is characterized by a considerable segment of economically and socially vulnerable farm population, who face difficulties in complying with the new and complex set of agricultural requirements Copyright PRITA DEVELOPMENT. All rights reserved.
5. External financing is crucial for agriculture as government’s support for this sector will be modest in the coming years, in line with increased pressures upon public spending from areas with an important social component
6. Banks have so far focused on large customers, rather than small ones to which some national programmes have been addressed and this is very much related to risk taking
7. Current international turmoil is no good news particularly for agriculture
Soaring food prices are an opportunity for countries with strong agricultural sectors
Food prices increased strongly on international markets during the last years, following some specific developments: increasing food demand due to population growth and higher living standards in Asia, increasing biofules demand especially in USA and EU, severe weather conditions that slashed agricultural output in many countries. Important structural changes in global economy, including fast growing GDP in China and India, have been closely reflected by commodity price increases – food, energy, metals.
Potential & Agricultural Regions
The historic provinces of Walachia, Transylvania, Moldavia, Dobrogea, and the Banat have distinct soil and climatic conditions that make them suitable for different types of agriculture. The breadbasket of Romania is Walachia, which provides half the annual grain harvest and roughly half the fruit and grapes. Truck farming, especially in the Ilfov Agricultural District surrounding Bucharest, is also important. Despite the fertility of Walachia's soil, yields fluctuate considerably from year to year because of recurrent droughts. Transylvania, which receives more precipitation than Walachia, has poorer soils and more rugged terrain that restricts large-scale mechanized farming. Livestock raising predominates in the mountains, and potatoes and grains are the principal crops in the central basin. Moldavia has generally less fertile soil than Walachia and receives scant rainfall. Its primary crops are corn, wheat, fruit and grapes, and potatoes. The Banat region has a nearly ideal balance of rich chernozem soils and adequate precipitation. Grain, primarily wheat, is the principal crop; fruits and vegetables are also important. Dobrogea, a region of generally inadequate rainfall, was becoming agriculturally more important during the 1980s, because much of the marshland in the Danube Delta was being drained and brought under cultivation. The traditional crops of Dobrogea are grain, sunflowers, and legumes.
Livestock
Prior to the dramatic increase in grain cultivation in the nineteenth century, livestock raising, sheep breeding in particular, was the most important economic activity in the country. But with the diversion of grazing land and a perennial shortage of fodder, livestock raising fell into decline. After a drastic reduction in livestock inventories in World War II, herds were gradually replenished, but the number of horses continued to decline, as agriculture became more mechanized. Cattle were raised throughout the country, particularly in the foothills of the Carpathians. Sheep predominated in the mountainous areas and Dobrogea. Pigs, poultry, and rabbits were raised on a wide scale.
Private farmers, who produced a large share of livestock brought to market, operated under dire conditions. The state theoretically was obliged to provide fodder to the livestock breeders it contracted to fatten animals. But fodder and protein rich mixed feeds were not made available in the necessary quantities, especially in the 1980s, when imports were drastically curtailed.
Farming Practices
By the mid-1980s, more than 30 percent of the country's 10 million hectares of cropland was irrigated. The remaining 7 million hectares were subject to recurrent and sometimes severe droughts, which were particularly destructive in the southern and eastern regions.
At the same time, large areas of land along the Danube and in its delta were waterlogged, and the government decided to drain much of this marshland and make it arable. The Danube Delta, covering more than 440,000 hectares, was being developed rapidly after 1984. By 1989 some 35,750 hectares had been made arable and large areas of pastureland had been created. By 1990 more than 144,000 hectares of the delta were expected to be useful agricultural land.
Poor crop rotation practices, with corn and wheat sown year after year on the same ground, led to serious depletion of soil nutrients, and supplies of chemical fertilizers were inadequate to restore the lost fertility. In the early 1980s, for example, only thirty-four to thirty-six kilograms of fertilizer were available per acre. Furthermore, much of the best farmland had been severely damaged by prolonged use of outsized machinery, which had compacted the soil, by unsystematic application of agricultural chemicals, and by extensive erosion.
During the first three decades of communist rule, agricultural planners ordered the slaughter of thousands of workhorses, which were to be replaced by more powerful tractors. Indeed, the number of tractors available to agriculture grew from 13,700 in 1950 to 168,000 in 1983. But with the onset of the energy crisis, the regime reversed its policy. A program adopted by the National Council for Agriculture, Food Industry, Forestry, and Water Management in 1986 called for increasing horse inventories by 90,000 head by the end of the decade and reducing the number of tractors in service by nearly one-third. By 1990, according to plans, horse-drawn equipment would perform 18 to 25 percent of all harvesting and virtually all hauling on livestock farms.
Farm Organization
Cooperative and state farms were the two primary types of farm organization, although a significant number of small private farms continued to exist in the 1980s. State farms accounted for more than 17 percent and cooperatives nearly 75 percent of all arable land. In 1982 cooperatives employed 2.2 million farmers, while state and private farms employed about 400,000 each.
The formation of state farms, which were intended to be the rural equivalent of socialist industrial enterprises, had begun as early as 1945. These ideologically favored farms received the best lands expropriated in 1949 and during the major collectivization campaign of the 1958-62 period, and they had priority access to machinery, chemicals, and irrigation water. Because of these advantages, state farms reported higher crop yields than did cooperative farms. Like other state enterprises, state farms operated according to the directives of the central government. Workers received a fixed wage in return for their labor on the farm and had no private plot rights. Their incomes in the 1980s approached those of urban workers.
Although cooperative farms owned their land and certain basic equipment, they had little more autonomy than the state farms. Their directors routinely accepted production directives from Bucharest with little objection. The cooperatives were told what crops to grow, how to grow them, and how much to deliver to the state. Many smaller cooperatives were ordered to combine into associations during the 1970s and 1980s to pool their assets. According to a decree issued by the Council of State, cooperative farmers were required to work at least 300 days per year on the cooperative, and they were subject to transfer to other farms or even to construction and lumber work sites if their own cooperative had no work for them. Between 40 and 60 percent of the average cooperative farm income was derived from the sale of products from private plots. Despite this supplementary income, cooperative farmers earned only about 60 percent as much as their counterparts on state farms in the 1980s. Cooperative farmers also had much smaller pension benefits.
As late as 1988 almost 9.5 percent of the country's 15 million hectares of agricultural land remained in private hands. As a rule, this land was located in relatively inaccessible mountainous regions, where use of heavy machinery was impractical. In addition, in 1988 cooperative farms reserved some 922,000 hectares (about 6 percent of all arable land) for private plots, which were cultivated by families working on the cooperatives. These plots averaged 1,500 square meters in area, but in rugged terrain they could be considerably larger. Thus in the late 1980s, the private sector was still cultivating more than 15 percent of the country's agricultural land--the highest total in Eastern Europe after Poland and Yugoslavia. Privately owned land could not be sold, nor could it be inherited by persons unable to tend it adequately.
Even official government statistics revealed that private agriculture was more than four times as productive as socialized agriculture in the cultivation of fruit; twice as productive in grain growing and poultry raising, and 60 percent more efficient in milk, beef, pork, and vegetable production. In 1987 the private sector produced half the sheep, 40 percent of the beef, 28 percent of the pork, and 63 percent of the fruit output.
Despite the higher productivity of private agriculture and its major contribution to total farm output, the Ceausescu regime systematically penalized the non socialist sector. At the very time most of the communist world was beginning to permit peasants to lease larger tracts for longer periods, Romania was actually reducing the area under private cultivation--from 967,500 hectares in 1965 to 922,841 in 1985. Beginning in 1987, an area of at least 500 square meters (or one-third) of each private plot was required to be sown in wheat, and the harvest was to be traded to the state for the yield from an equivalent amount of land cultivated by the cooperative farm. This policy was designed to discourage peasants from spending an inordinate amount of time cultivating their private plots instead of working for the cooperative. Its effect, however, was to further demoralize the farm population and thus make it less productive.
In the late 1980s, the systematization program aimed to subordinate privately owned land and private plots on cooperative farms to the regional agro-industrial councils and thereby tighten central control of private farming. Systematization would eliminate many of the plots, as villages were leveled to create vast fields for socialized farming. This policy directly contradicted the government's mandate in the 1980s that the population essentially feed itself by cultivating small plots (even lawns and public parks had been converted to vegetable gardens) and breeding poultry and rabbits.
Procurement and Distribution
Economic and Financial Mechanism, were in theory self-financed and self- State farms, like other socialist enterprises after the implementation of the New managed concerns that were expected to earn a profit while delivering assigned quantities of output to the state. In reality, few state farms in the 1980s could turn a profit, because the government's procurement prices were consistently lower than production costs. Cooperatives and private farmers, too, had large state-imposed quotas to fill even before satisfying their own food requirements. A 1984 decree specified the quantity of production to be delivered to the state by farmers. For example, potato growers were required to deliver three tons per hectare of land cultivated, and dairy farmers had to turn over 800 liters of milk per cow. To ensure compliance with the compulsory quotas, Ceausescu reinstituted the Department for Contracting, Acquiring, and Storing Farm Produce, which had been disbanded in 1956. The state was able to hold sway over individual farmers because it controlled the supply of fertilizers, herbicides, machinery, construction materials, and other inputs. To gain access to these materials, the farmer had to sign delivery contracts. Farmers who failed to comply with the delivery quotas even risked losing their land.
Farmers were permitted to keep for their own use any food remaining after their quotas had been filled, and they could sell the surplus at farmers' markets, where prices in the early 1980s were frequently five times the state procurement prices. A law passed in 1983 required peasants to obtain a license to sell their products on the open market, and it imposed a maximum commodity price of 5 percent above the state retail price. Disappointing harvests in the early 1980s convinced the government to raise procurement prices. As a result, peasant incomes rose by some 12 percent between 1980 and 1985, and farm output increased by about 10 percent. Private farmers in the mid-1980s were obliged to sell to the state 30 percent of the milk, 50 percent of the pork, 12 percent of the potatoes, and comparable shares of other commodities they produced.
Throughout the 1980s, a self-sufficiency program, mandated by the PCR, was in effect. Each village and judet was responsible for producing, to the maximum extent possible, the food needed by the local population. In reality the program was another means for procuring agricultural products for export. Nearly all the production from the three types of farms was confiscated by state procurement agencies, which then returned the amount of food the state deemed sufficient to meet the dietary needs of the village and judet. The quantity returned invariably was less than that delivered. The self-sufficiency program in effect reversed the rationalization of the 1970s, when regions specialized in the crops and livestock best suited to local conditions. Thus a portion of the prime grain lands of Walachia had to be diverted to truck farming, while cool, wet regions of Transylvania attempted to grow sunflowers. The self-sufficiency program seriously impeded the distribution of agricultural products among regions and damaged the domestic marketing system.
The party secretary of each judet was responsible for delivering a specified quota of food to the state. Because these individuals reacted in different ways to the countervailing needs of their constituents and the central authorities, there was considerable regional variation in food supplies. Many party secretaries began understating output figures so that less would have to be delivered to Bucharest and more would be available for the people of their judet. Aware of this regional variation, citizens made food-hunting forays into other judete hoping to find stores better stocked. Ceausescu ordered the militia to monitor the highways and railroads to prevent "illegal" food trafficking.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Food Processing itself was torn between a sense of responsibility to safeguard the interests of the agricultural sector and its obligation to fulfill the regime's mandate to maximize procurement. To resolve these conflicting loyalties, in February 1986 a separate Ministry of Food Industry and Procurement was established.
Consumption
Although gross agricultural output had been increasing at a rate four times higher than population growth between 1950 and 1980, food availability remained inadequate. In 1981 rationing was imposed for the first time since 1953, and it remained in effect throughout the decade, as the regime exported as much as possible to pay off the foreign debt. In 1985 the average citizen was eligible to receive 54.88 kilograms of meat and fish, 1.1 kilograms of margarine, 9.6 kilograms of cooking oil, 14.8 kilograms of sugar, 114.5 kilograms of flour, 45.3 kilograms of potatoes, 20 kilograms of fruit, and 114 eggs per year. In reality, most Romanians were unable to obtain even these scant rations, as the situation deteriorated even further in following years. The food supply program of 1988 enacted by the GNA provided for an annual per capita consumption of 38 liters of milk, 3.5 kilograms of cheese, 1.5 kilograms of butter, 128 eggs, 21 kilograms of sweets, 3.6 kilograms of rice, 500 grams of oatmeal, and 22 kilograms of cornmeal.
Reliable statistics on food consumption were not available during the 1980s. Comecon statistical reports omitted Romanian data after 1981. Romania's own statistical yearbooks stopped reporting figures for consumption of food and many other commodities, including clothing, appliances, automobiles, and bicycles. Ceausescu claimed in November 1988 that the daily per capita calorie intake of Romanians was 3,200 calories, which he termed excessive. He promised to improve food supplies in 1988 by slaughtering 8 million sheep and between 7.5 and 12.5 million hogs- -an unlikely proposal considering that the entire national inventory included only 18.6 million sheep and 14.3 million hogs.
Rural Development necessity
The changing global context adds new urgency. Sudden increases in food prices in 2008
drove an estimated 8 million people into poverty.
The seasonal nature of agriculture resulted in a lagged production response. Global food prices more than doubled from 2006 to mid-2008, then declined by 30–40 percent through to the end of May 2009. Global food prices are now increasingly being driven by events exogenous to the food sector. Future prices are expected to remain higher than in the 1990s and likely more volatile. Higher price volatility may dampen supply response to higher average prices, negatively impacting both poor producers and consumers. In addition, the financial crisis has both slowed growth and trade.
Resultant declines in government revenue have curbed the ability of governments to respond.
Exchange rate depreciations have also kept food prices high. Tighter lending practices of commercial banks have led to higher interest rates on farmer and gribusiness
borrowing and lowered subsequent investment in the sector.
Lower remittances and migration back to rural areas have lowered purchasing power and pressured household budgets.
The severity of the impact of the food and financial crises has been amplified by broader trends that need to be acknowledged in future action. These include the ability of institutions, policy, and investment to respond to accelerated demand for food, globalization of markets and associated risks, rising urbanization, growing land and water scarcity, and climate change.
Each has implications for the role of agriculture in the broader economy, and the associated priorities for action.
Climate change adds to the uncertainty. Yet global annual growth rates in yields of major grains have declined from around 3 percent in 1980 to 1 percent today.
These trends place upward pressure on food prices, on further deforestation for crop area expansion and associated climate change impacts. Substantial investment in agricultural productivity growth is needed now.
Seventy-five percent of the world’s poor live in rural areas, and most are involved in farming. Overall GDP growth originating in agriculture has proven to be, on average, two to four times as effective in raising incomes of the poor as growth generated in nonagricultural sectors. Maintaining and enhancing these poverty reducing impacts of
agricultural growth will require concerted efforts to integrate smallholder farmers into growing global agricultural markets and supply chains..
Climate change is likely to expose more people, more frequently and
for longer periods to threats to their livelihoods. Agriculture can play a significant
role in mitigating climate change, but adaptation also remains important. Productivity
growth potentially reduces the need for deforestation. More drought tolerant
crops and livestock breeds can improve resilience.
Education and training can improve management of climate induced changes in pests, weeds, and diseases. Better managing agricultural intensification can reduce GHG emissions, as can sequestering more carbon in the soil.
The latter offers an important potential income source for the poor, but only if soil carbon sequestration is adequately included in future carbon trading systems.
Project leader together with “Ben Gurion” University
Rural development involves highly individual projects designed and executed by local partnerships to address specific local problems, to improve the quality of life in rural areas and encouraging diversification of the rural economy
MICRO REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT PILOT PROJECT
The economic and social situation of most Romanian regions deals with major dysfunctionalities and is characterized by the lack of coherence and the lack of a rigorous plan that would stimulate the community development. In substance, the problems that determine the existing situation are:
a. The government does not have any coherent strategic programs for a regional development. The existing policies are, in case they exist, purely declarative and elaborated without clear methodologies or the necessary instruments for their implementation.
b. The banking system does not participate effectively in financing the small production activities and the rural micro farms. The banks are oriented towards the big projects, are centered on financing the current needs of the state – that practically absorbs everything that the banks dispose of. This makes the latter lose their interest in co-financing smaller projects.
c. The demographic situation tends to become critical: in the rural areas, the young have little chance to establish their own micro farm/ small production workshops. As a result, they are nearly forced to head for the big cities or other European countries.
d. The present economic crisis, correlated with uninspired policies for crisis situations, causes the states’ helplessness in sustaining this type of projects in the near future, projects that would insure some minimal conditions for a natural development of the rural regions.
Therefore, we consider that a pilot project in this sense should incorporate the following directions:
I. SETTING UP A REGIONAL CENTER FOR THE COORDINATION OF THE PILOT PROJECT
A central executive office is established, coordinating the project implementation and monitoring the different segments. It acts correctly to correlate the right execution of the different work directions. It can be a non profit organization or an advisory services company that will contract the execution of the project.
II. ESTABLISHING A GUARANTEE FUND FOR FINANCIAL CREDIT AVAILABLE FOR THE SMALL PRODUCTION, EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE MAIN DIRECTIONS OF THIS PROJECT.
No regional development project can be implemented if there is no simplified and flexible financing of the different activities the project involves. Romania has a well working, modern and professional banking system. What all banks want is to increase its profit and its financial and strategic interest in a certain market. What is missing now for a bank to be interested in such projects as the one presented here, is the guarantee that this project will be implemented. The Romanian government does not offer any guarantee that it can carry out a strategic project, according to a graphic. The renown and the image of the “Ben Gurion” University can help at surpassing this deadlock.
Working possibilities:
a. An auction organized by the “Ben Gurion” University having as result the financing of the project insured by one Romanian bank.
b. The “Ben Gurion” University will directly assign an Israeli bank/ an agreed bank to finish the project
What needs to be mentioned is that the project should not “absorb” money, but it should have the financial support for its implementation and it should offer the bank the certainty of a profitable progress (the payments will be made only through the agreed bank, all the local investment will be analyzed and will integrate in normal banking projects, i.e. investment projects).
III. ESTABLISHING A FREE OF CHARGES ADVISORY SERVICES CENTERS, OPEN FOR ALL THOSE WHO APPLY FOR ONE OF THE SMALL INVESTMENT PROJECTS THAT COMPLY WITH THE CONDITIONS OF THE PILOT PROJECT.
The main coordinating center of the “Ben Gurion” project will set up free of charges advisory services offices, in 4-5 smaller cities in the project’s implementation region. They will insure actual, technical consultancy for the village smaller businesses that will be financed and implemented in the pilot project conditions.
IV. SETTING UP A WELL DEFINED PROGRAM OF MEASURES THAT SHOULD MOTIVATE THE PRESENCE OF SPECIALISTS IN THE RURAL REGIONS
Our project should stimulate specialists (university graduates) to open small technical advisory services offices (e.g. agronomists, veterinarians, IT specialists etc.) through the granting of a rural region installation credit, with interest rates subsidized by the central office and the granting of some amenities and firm contracts, meant to motivate them in opening their offices in the regions the central office is interested in.
In each of the centers where the advisory services offices will be set up – in small towns or villages - , motivation projects should be coordinated, so that specialists establish in every village a work office (e.g. agronomy, phytosanitary offices or veterinary medicine)
It is absolutely necessary to stimulate specialists’ relocation in the rural areas. For this to happen, some motivational factors must be found, such as form contracts that would ensure their services through the direct intervention of the central coordinating office.
V. ORGANIZING AN ACQUISITION - PRESORTING - PACKAGING - SALE SYSTEM AND ORGANIZING A CENTRALIZED ACTIVITY OF CONCLUDING SALE AGREEMENTS FOR THE PRODUCTS.
The central coordinating office will elaborate a plan for setting up some regional acquisition offices for the farmers. These centers will be organized according to business criteria; will ensure the financing of the production and the cultures and will buy the production obtained. Moreover, they will elaborate a plan and will conduct activities such as production contracts with distributors and wholesalers, will stimulate the creation of contractual relationships with foreign market agents.
VI. ELABORATING A PLAN FOR THE PROJECT, THAT WOULD ENSURE THE COMPATIBILITY OF THE MAIN ACTION DIRECTIONS OF THE PILOT PROJECT WITH THE ONES ESTABLISHED FOR THE EU STRUCTURAL FUNDS.
The project should take into account correlating its main directions with the ones imposed by the non-refundable EU support and also compensating for the existing dyfunctionalities in accessing these funds. The main problem for small farmers and entrepreneurs in the case of structural funds is the lack of specialized services and this will be one of the main directions our project will work in. Thus, a great part of the necessary project implementation funds will be ensured from EU funds. Therefore, it is necessary that the central coordination office should correlate its implementation measures with those eligible for non-refundable financing and to help the areas that are not covered by these.
REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
FUNCTIONAL DIAGRAM
Segment 1
segment 2 segment 3 segment 4
SEGMENT 1 – CONSULTANCY OFFICE
DIRECT COORDINATION: CCO
LEVEL 1 : CONSULTANCY CENTERS - selects the eligible activities and entrepreneurs for the project
- Elaborates the necessary technical documentation;
- insures the projects’ management;
- Insures the necessary commercial and juridical assistance for the created businesses;
LEVEL 2 : SPECIALIZED SERVICES - specialized services necessary for the ongoing of the project generated activities (e.g ACCOUNTING, FINANCIAL/LAW ASSISTANCE, AGRONOMISTS/PHYTO-PATHOLOGISTS, IT SPECIALISTS/SYSTEMS, MECHANIC WORKSHOPS/EQUIPMENT SERVICES a.s.o)
LEVEL 3 : LOGISTICS/SALE - elaborates stimulation policies for cultures having a big potential market;
- Elaborates and implements contracting policies for the resulting production;
- Insures the contracting for the production and insures the target-market and firm contracts for selling the products.
SEGMENT 2 – MICRO FARMS : AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION
DIRECT COORDINATION -> Segment 1 - CONSULTANCY OFFICE
Project 1 Project 2 Project 3 Project 4 Project 5 ….. Project N
The segment-2 regional consultancy office - insures the identification of potential applicants for accessing eligible projects,
- provides the technical pre-analysis
- elaborates the necessary documentation, under the direct guidance of CCO
- provides the project management for all the projects
- provides the current technical services (financial relationships, accounting, juridical assistance, dissemination and different interconnections with other segments)
- provides commercial assistance for the ongoing businesses, in relationship with the segment specialized in contracting the production
- offers assistance in evaluation and efficiency studies for the internal organization of the business.
SEGMENT 3 – SMALL INDUSTRY/ PRODUCTS’ PROCESSING
DIRECT COORDINATION –> Segment 1 – CONSULTANCY OFFICE
The segment 2 consultancy office identifies the needs involved by the outgoing production, by setting up cultures (segment 2) and offers advantageous conditions for opening small processing factories for those products resulted from the setting up of cultures, within the accepted projects. For example: if in segment 2 the micro-farms produce cereals, in segment 3, the encouraged projects will be those concerning mills, packing departments for corn/flour/other. If, in segment 2 microfarms produce vegetables, the encouraged projects for segment 3 will involve cans production, pre-packing and distribution etc.
SEGMENT 4 – AGRICULTURAL ACQUISITION CENTER
DIRECT COORDINATION - CCO
This center is organized so that it can assure the contracting of the obtained production; it provides the necessary quantities of seeds, fertilizers, phyto-sanitary treatments, irrigations etc.
It provides the preferred products for insuring the raw material for the set up projects; it obtains selling contracts for the production, through contractual relationships with intern and international wholesalers etc.
Start-up Budget issue:
ANEXA 1
The rural Development Plan is organized around five focal areas:
• Raise agricultural productivity—including support to increased adoption of improved technology(e.g., seed varieties, livestock breeds), improved agricultural water management, tenure security and land markets, and strengthened agricultural innovation systems.
• Link farmers to market and strengthen value addition—including continued support for investments in transport infrastructure, strengthened producer organizations, improved market information, and access to finance.
• Reduce risk and vulnerability—continued support for social safety nets, for better managing
national food production, innovative insurance products, protection against catastrophic loss, and reduced risk of major livestock disease outbreaks.
• Facilitate agricultural entry and exit and rural non farm income—including improved rural investment climates, and upgraded skills.
• Enhance environmental services and sustainability—including better managed livestock intensification, and support to link improved agricultural practices to carbon markets (e.g., through soil carbon sequestration).
Immediate Steps:
• identify the areas where the use of EU support for rural development adds the most value at EU level;
• make the link with the main EU priorities;
• ensure consistency with other EU policies, in particular those for economic cohesion and the environment;
• assist the implementation of the new market-oriented CAP and the necessary restructuring it will entail in the old and new Member States.
