1.Romania must not sell out traditional farmers to the biotech giants
2.Genetically Modified Lunch with the Romanian Minister of Agriculture
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1.Romania must not sell out traditional farmers to the biotech giants
Luke Dale-Harris*
The Guardian, 10 July 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/10/romania-smallhold-farmers
*Romania's smallholder farmers are being denied EU funding as ministers allow the encroachment of large-scale agribusiness
Time in Romania seems to fold with the landscape. Where the hills of Transylvania rise from the Hungarian plains, life carries on as it has for centuries; farmers cultivate their small plots of land by hand while pigs, chickens and children roam unpaved village streets.
However, where the land drops and the horizon opens up, history closes in and the reforms of the past 75 years, first under communism and then capitalism, become evident.
Around villages sealed off by concrete blocks built under Ceausescu, the land stretches out in huge fields carrying single crops, occasionally punctuated by the slow crawl of a €500,000 combine harvester. With uncapped EU subsidies rewarding growth and productivity over all else, these farms are growing exponentially, swallowing all in their way. This, it seems, is the future of Romanian agriculture. Yet, where this model of farming might have worked in other countries, Romania, like many of its Balkan neighbours, is a different story.
Despite the best efforts of Ceausescu to throw them off the land and the draw of new markets and employment opportunities since, around 30% of Romania's 19 million population continues to live off their subsistence and semi-subsistence farms. However, both Romanian government and policy makers in Brussels refuse to acknowledge that these are the people who prop up the Romanian economy, keep the culture alive and the environment diverse.
Instead, officials are systematically undermining the infrastructure that the country relies on. By applying the widely condemned "one size fits all' policy central to the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the vast majority of Romania's farmers are being cast to the sidelines. At present 51% of the €6bn yearly subsidies coming into Romania go to just 0.9% of farms, while a total of 70% of Romanian farms are considered ineligible for subsidies of any kind.
The networks of trade that peasant farmers have traditionally relied on are being eroded on both ends. With the seed market largely monopolised by multinationals who drive the price up for seeds that won't reproduce and must be bought anew each year, farmers are often forced into spending unnecessarily. At the other end, local markets are dying under competition from foreign superstores, selling food at low prices that are only made affordable by subsidies and technology that the peasant farmers don't have.
Today, an annual agribusiness conference is being held in Bucharest. It is the first such meeting under the new minister of agriculture, Daniel Consantin, the third person to hold the position this year. Smallholder farmers tentatively placed their hopes on Constantin, as he marks a break from the previous ministers, Valeriu Tabără and Stelian Fuia, both of whom had previously worked for controversial Biotech giant, Monsanto, and in favour both of further GMO cultivation and intensive farming.
However, the conference, sponsored by Monsanto, Pioneer and DuPont, and attended by some of the country's largest landowners, promises to continue in the old vein, leaving power in the hands of private investors. Even the secretary of state for agriculture, Achim Irimescu, was unable to deny that the sponsors and attendants had political motives for funding the event, saying "usually (these companies) have an interest in sponsoring these events for some kind of lobby purposes".
If the conference turns out as expected, it will be a demoralising sign for farmers and environmental NGOs who have been fighting for changes in the ministry of agriculture in the lead up to the CAP reforms in 2013. In order to both support its citizens and compete internationally on the food market, Romania needs to start to view its poor farmers as the building blocks on which it can create its future, rather than a persistent problem that needs to be phased out. Small farms are able to produce as much or more food as their large competitors, yet they are being killed off under the false promise of increasing yields and economic development. Until Romania focuses funds towards rural development and sustainable agriculture, it threatens its own culture, environment and the largest part of its population.
*Luke Dale-Harris is a freelance journalist based in Transylvania, Romania. Among other things he is currently working on a documentary about Romania's smallhold farming communities.
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2.Genetically Modified Lunch with the Romanian Minister of Agriculture
GMO Information Centre Romania, 5 July 2012
http://www.infomg.ro/web/en/Home/News/3/1654
Press release / Cluj Napoca, Romania
The Minister of Agriculture, Daniel Constantin continues the tradition started by his predecessors, Valeriu Tabără[1] and Stelian Fuia[2], of liaising with the corporate giants of the genetically modified organisms (GMO) market. On the 10th of July 2012, the Minister for Agriculture will be the patron of the annual conference called AgriBusiness[3], which will take place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Bucharest. The lobby event is organized for the second time by The Diplomat – Bucharest publication and sponsored by the multinational companies Monsanto and Pioneer and the professional association Agrobiotechrom[4]. It gathers large landowners, Romanian authorities which regulate and monitor the agricultural sector, key members of the Romanian Parliament and greedy biotech multinational companies seeking for new opportunities and markets.
Main discussions on the authorities’ agenda: Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)
According to the conference program[5] the first discussions are explicitly dedicated to the GMO issue in Romania, the speakers being key personalities in the marketing of these largely controversial plants. The GMO issue will be presented unilaterally, without mentioning the risks and negative impacts on the environment, health and rural communities. Observing the limited time allocated for discussions one can draw the conclusion that the stake of the conference is the Networking Lunch closing the program.
Contacted by the Genetically Modified Organisms Information Center – InfOMG, mister Adrian Ion from the Diplomat-Bucharest stated that he didn’t see any conflict in the fact that the publication he works for is a member of the media and in the same time, the organizer of a Monsanto & Pioneer lobby event, trying to explain that GMOs are not the main topic of the conference.
Being asked “How much money did Monsanto contribute through sponsorship for the event?” mister Adrian Ion replied: “It’s none of your concern”. The farmers or non governmental organizations which cannot afford the 149 Euro attendance fee[6] can participate to the event only if seats remain available. “The event is for industry people, interested in the debated subjects... The farmers must have a certain dimension, not only 5 hectares...” explained Adrian Ion.
“It’s already proven that genetically modified organisms are not safe and that they do not offer any mid and long term economic benefits. Important agricultural countries (France, Germany, Hungary, Austria etc.) have banned the cultivation of GMOs and chose to support organic agriculture. Romania has to follow these development models. If today we do not defend our cultures from GMO contamination, in the future we will only discuss about genetic manipulations, not agriculture”, declared Bogdan Buta, executive director of the Genetically Modified Organisms Information Center – InfOMG.
A Common Agriculture Policy for speculators or for the ones who feed our country?
A secondary theme of the conference is the Common Agriculture Policy. Small organic and traditional farmers are seriously threatened by big agribusiness multinationals, which have a direct influence on the public authorities through lobby events like this, in the middle of the debates for a new Common Agricultural Policy.
At the present time, when government is in the middle of the debates for reforms in the Common Agricultural Policy, the prospect of such lobbies is a huge threat to the development of agriculture in Romania. The fact that they impose their interests in front of the majority of farmers, threatening organic and traditional agriculture, subsistence and sustainable agriculture, is a an affront to the democratic principles.
“The agribusiness lobby has prevailed too long in front of the interests of small farmers. The future of Romanian farming can only be built through small family farms which create more jobs than industrial farming, needing equal chances with the few large farmers which are taking over the market[7].
In a Europe where large farms are favored from the start through huge subsidies, small farmers are destined to disappear. The almost 4 million small farmers which feed Romania with their products demand the Ministry of Agriculture to represent them, but the Ministry responds paving the ways for large scale agribusiness. The time has come for small scale farmers to make their voices heard”, declared Attila Szocs, director of Eco Ruralis Association.
For more information please contact:
Bogdan Buta
Director
Genetically Modified Organisms Information Center – InfOMG Romania
Phone/Fax: +40264 599 204
Mobil: +40753 542 345
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Web: www.infomg.ro
Attila Szocs
Director
Eco Ruralis Association in support of traditional and organic peasants of Romania
Phone/Fax: +40264 599 204
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Web: www.ecoruralis.ro
NOTES:
1. http://www.infomg.ro/web/en/Home/News/3/1141 - Opened Letter “Romanian civil society asks the new Minister for Agriculture to NOT Genetically Manipulate Romania”
2. http://www.infomg.ro/web/ro/Home/Stiri/3/1526 - Opened Letter “Stelian Fuia, the Monsanto Minister”
3. http://www.agribusiness2012.thediplomat.ro/index.php
4. http://www.agrobiotechrom.ro/ - Association funded by Monsanto, Pioneer and Syngenta, Nicolae Hristea (ex director of the Quality, Research and Development Direction” of the Ministry for Agriculture), Toma Dinu (ex director of the General Direction for Agricultural Policy Implementation of the Ministry for Agriculture, dean of the Agronomy Faculty in Bucharest) and others.
5. http://www.agribusiness2012.thediplomat.ro/program.php
6. http://www.agribusiness2012.thediplomat.ro/registration.php
7. http://ecoruralis.ro/storage/files/Documente/ReportCAP.pdf - Eco Ruralis Report: “Romania and the Common Agricultural Policy: The future of small scale Romanian farming in Europe”