Farmers are asking the Government, in an open letter, to declare a state of calamity due to severe drought and heat in all areas where more than half of the cultivated area is affected. They claim that there are counties where autumn crops are affected up to 80%.
The Alliance for Agriculture and Cooperation requests, until July 31, the declaration of the state of calamity caused by severe pedological drought and atmospheric heat in the localities / counties where more than 50% of the surface covered by a crop is affected, the alliance representatives claim in a letter open to the authorities.
“The Alliance for Agriculture and Cooperation officially informs you that farmers have suffered huge damage following the severe pedological drought of winter 2021-2022, spring 2022 and atmospheric heat this summer. There are counties where areas with autumn crops have a degree of damage due to severe pedological drought between 40-80% As you well know, the situation is much more dramatic in spring crops that have a degree of damage between 90-100%. (…)
We need to declare a state of calamity quickly, because most contracts for high-priced inputs due to energy crises, fuel, war, will expire at the end of July 2022. In each normal agroclimatic year, farmers have paid their inputs, have delivered the crops contracted with the input suppliers or with the local companies, paid the rent, the loan rates, the leasing, the taxes and duties“, the alliance says in the open letter.
Representatives of the Alliance for Agriculture and Cooperation say that although this year’s drought is not widespread across the country, affecting only certain counties, farmers are much more severely affected than in the 2020 harvest due to the effects of energy crises, fuel crises or war. “There are many cases when the difficulties are of the nature of the survival of the agricultural holding given the large investments made in farms this year, the debts they have for the inputs used in the harvest year 2022, the rent and the necessary expenses for the establishment of agricultural crops for the agricultural year 2022-2023“, the letter also says.
The farmers ask the Minister of Agriculture Petre Daea to start the procedures for declaring the state of calamity due to the severe pedological drought and the heat in the localities / counties where more than 50% of the surface covered by agricultural crops is affected. According to the quoted source, the GEO comes in the legislative continuation of OMADR 97/2020 with the subsequent amendments and completions, giving the possibility to the involved authorities to have the power conferred by law to declare a state of calamity and assimilation by force majeure. Farmers are calling for the declaration of the state of disaster by July 31.