This year's grain production, of around 18 million tonnes, coulddouble if farmers invested in technology and also worked theuntilled land, accounting for almost 35% of Romania's total arablearea, says Greg Page, CEO of Cargill US grain trade giant.
While the level of state aid of the past ten years revolvesaround 10bn euros, Romania still has one of the lowest grainvolumes per hectare in Europe. Moreover, of the over 9.4 millionhectares of arable land, almost 3.5 million hectares are leftuntilled.
Currently, agriculture contributes a little above 6% to Romania's110bn-euro GDP, but a better organisation would significantly boostthe importance of this field in the economy.
"The biggest opportunity of Romanian agriculture will be if startsworking the untilled land. The need of agricultural products willdouble in the coming period, and for this Romania, as well as othercountries in the Black Sea area, need to considerably boostproduction," Page said.
Cargill Romania reached turnover worth around 280m euros in2009.
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