Danish buy tens of thousands of hectares of Romanian farming land

Danish investors Ingleby, Agro Syd Invest, FirstFarms, Dangro Invest and Jantzen Development have in the last year bought over 25,000 hectares of farming land in Romania in order to develop businesses in the agricultural and livestock farming sectors, according to data centralised by ZF. Currently, the price of farming land ranges from 1,500 euros to 4,000 euros per hectare, depending on the area where they are located and on soil fertility. If an average price of 2,500 euros per hectare is considered, the investments of the five Danish groups exceed 60 million euros. Danish company Jantzen Development is developing three investment projects in farms in Romania, with JD Agro Cocora being the first to enter the investment stage. "The JD Agro Cocora project is worth 40 million euros in all, which includes the investment that goes into building the farm as well as the plots to be used for crops," said Iulia Dumitrescu, country manager of SC Jantzen Development. One of the first Danish investors to have bought land in Romania is FirstFarms, a group which acquired almost 9,000 ha of farming land as follows: close to Buzau (4,114 ha), near Timisoara (3,296 ha), nearby Alexandria, Teleorman county (137 ha) and in Braila. The Ingleby group in Denmark took over two farming-oriented companies in Romania in 2008 and 4,000 hectares of farming land. Campo d'oro and Cinque Stelle Venete, in Timis county and Caras-Severin county respectively, set up by two Italian investors, were taken over by Ingleby, which kept the core business of the companies, as well as their names.