Drought wipes EUR 1 bln from Romanian agricultural sector

This year’s drought caused losses of over EUR 1 bln for the Romanian agricultural sector, with 800,000 of the country’s 5.4 million hectares of crops being impacted.

2021 saw a record production of 34 million tons of grain, and prices that were kept up by the war in Ukraine. This year’s weak showing is, however, not as bad as the one that farmers endured in 2020. The first year of the pandemic was also the one with the worst drought in the last half-century, leading to a 40% loss in agricultural production.

In Dobrogea, Romania’s south-eastern region bordering the Black Sea, corn crops were some of the most severely impacted. Non-irrigated plots offered nothing but scorched land to farmers. Nearly 70% of the sunflower harvest, on the other hand, was spared, Theodor Ichim, president of the Dobrogea Association of Agricultural Producers, told Ziarul Financiar.

This year's losses amount to EUR 1 bln in lost revenue. To survive future droughts, Ichim and other farmers are investing in irrigation works, constructing systems that will transport water to their crops when rains are absent for long periods of time. Even those who had their fields irrigated, however, took a hit in profits this year.

“Current productions are lower than the estimates we made. For example, we expected to harvest 14.5 tons of corn per hectare from the irrigated areas, but we got between 13 and 13.5 tons per hectare. We have nothing to harvest from the non-irrigated areas. Not even fodder for the animals, the production is zero,” says Gabriel Stanciu, president of the Braicoop Agricultural Cooperative in Brăila. The county has the largest share of irrigated crop fields in the country but was still impacted by the drought.

Irrigation may not be a solution in the long term also because this year’s drought also impacted Romania’s water reserves. Back in July, Apele Române, the authority which manages waterways and lakes in the country, recommended that people use water reserves sparsely and avoid watering their gardens, as the drought had lowered water levels in some 40 reservoirs around the country.

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