Baragan Fields Photo: Wikipedia |
How is it
possible that Romanians, citizens of an agrarian society for centuries, have
become doctors, lawyers, and engineers, but have neglected to farm, an
important occupation for the survival of a nation? During Ceausescu’s regime the
country managed to feed through its heavy export part of the west and parts of Africa but today, the vast
fertile fields remain unused, full of weeds and abandoned to soil erosion by wind
and rain.
Where does the
food come from? Aside from small farms, industrial scale agriculture no longer
produces Romania’s food. Wheat, corn, and sunflower seeds make up half of
exports but most finished goods including food come from imports.
Adrian
Porumboiu, who owns Racova Com Agro Pan of Vaslui, is quoted as saying that
Romania imports cherries from South Africa and beans from Ethiopia. http://www.activenews.ro/economie-agricultura/Ambasadorul-Norvegiei-catre-romani-Puteti-hrani-80-de-milioane-de-oameni-dar-importati--doua-treimi-din-alimente.-E-o-nebunie-123525
According to
ampress.ro, items like pork and sugar constitute a large percentage of imports. http://www.expunere.com/ambasadorul-norvegiei-catre-romani-puteti-hrani-80-de-milioane-de-oameni-dar-importati-doua-treimi-din-alimente-e-o-nebunie.html
Lucian
Avramescu asked in his scathing article „why Romania imports garlic from China,
leeks from Egypt, apples from Poland, and lettuce from Brazil.” I saw with my
own eyes in May this year pears from Chile. I thought to myself at the time,
these pears have come a long way to Ploiesti. Where are the Romanian pears? Fruit
orchards were abundant when I was growing up. And locals grew fruit trees in
their own back yards.
Wine grapes Photo: Ileana 2012 |
„Why purchase
grapes abroad when you have vineyards that produce the most diverse varieties
of table and wine grapes, enough to fill the most regal tables of the world?”
said Avramescu. „Why buy grapes from Italy when you have vineyards in
Dragasani, Pietroasele, Valea Calugareasca, or Odobesti, grapes that are just
as good if not better than those purchased from Italy where they are sprayed
abundantly with pesticides,” he added. I now understand why in our Italian apartment
in Veneto, overlooking a vineyard, we never saw any mosquitoes or flies even
though, in the absence of air conditioning, we left the windows wide open day
and night.
Why would
anyone import food for a population five times smaller than the actual amount
of food they could grow themselves if they tried again? Instead, as Avramescu
said, Romanians export wood and import wheat into a „Grain Country.” The fields
of grain used to be so tall that a rider on this horse could hide nicely in the
wheat blowing in the wind.
What happened?
Why import garlic from China which has been fertilized „with human feces,” said
Avramescu. Why import shrimp from the sewers of China when we have the Black
Sea and the Danube Delta? There is a simple answer – globalism and EU control.
Billions in grants and easy finance come from the EU with strings attached.
Romania is not
alone when it engages in insane trade policies and agricultural practices. More
and more local agricultural businesses and large farms around the world have
been bought by China. Pigs and chickens are shipped to China from the U.S. to
be processed and then shipped back to grocery stores in the U.S. without
provenance labeling.
The Norwegian
was kind, said Avramescu, he only called the importation practice „paradoxal.”
What he meant to say, „it is idiotic.”
Romanian field of corn Photo: Ileana Johnson 2011 |
Romanians may
no longer grow enough food to feed 20 million people on some of the abandoned Baragan
fields that used to be the breadbasket of the Balkans. Mini tornadoes of dust
swirl in the air between the slow-turning wind turbines that dot the barren
landscape in Baragan. The good news it that they’ve been incentivized to use
renewable energy they can barely afford in their homes and to reduce pollution
through a 306 million euro grant from Norway. Who needs to grow food to survive
when becoming green saves the planet?
What if the
exporter decides to reduce crop yield due to drought, unforseen natural circumstances,
or increase its own domestic reserves of grain? What will the importer do?
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