Drought diminished the value of Romanian agricultural production by 6.6 pc in 2015

The value of agricultural production in Romania has decreased by 6.6% in 2015 against 2014, reaching EUR 68.98 billion (approx. EUR 15.32 billion), decrease caused mainly by unfavourable climate conditions, especially drought, the National Statistical Institute (INS) informs, according to cotidianul.ro.

Thus, the agricultural sector was a brake on economic growth last year, which contributed by minus 0.5% to the GDP growth, the only economic sector that recorded such an influence.

Economic growth in 2015, excluding agriculture, which depended on the weather, reached a post-crisis maximum of 4.2%. Yet, INS reconfirmed a growth of 3.7% in 2015, with a strong advance of consumption, but also with higher investments than expected.

In the last two decades, the share of agriculture in GDP has fallen four times, reaching 4.4%, the lowest historical level. In Romania, 63.5% of the total agricultural production, i.e. EUR 43.8 billion was generated last year by crop production, of which the grain crops accounted for 33.7%, by vegetables and melons – 21%, while fruit and grape crops contributed 10.3%, INS informs.

The crop production has declined by 10.4% against 2014. The share value of vegetable crops and melons as well as oil plants increased by 3.8 percentage points and 0.9 percentage points respectively and the culture of potatoes and cereal crops fell by 3.4 percentage points and 1.2 percentage points respectively.

For fruits and grapes, the share is constant. The livestock contributed by 35.3% to the value of agricultural production in Romania, 26.5% of the animal production value of EUR 24.3 billion being generated from products produced from milk processing. As compared to 2014, the livestock production increased by 1.5% in 2015. Structure by value of the main species of livestock production and product groups reveals small differences in 2015 against the previous year. In poultry the share increased by 2.0 percentage points and in pigs, sheep and goats the share decreased by 1.1 percentage points and by 0.4 percentage points respectively.

Romania’s agricultural production accounts for 4% of the total EU production of over EUR 392.3 billion, according to Eurostat. The largest contribution is France’s (18% of total EU), followed by Germany (13% of total), Italy (12.3%), Spain (10.47%) and the UK (7.8%).

Of the major agricultural producers in the European Union, Romania registered in 2015 the highest production of sunflower, was second in corn production (after France), the fifth in the production of wheat (after France, Germany, Great Britain and Poland) and fifth in potatoes production (after Germany, France, Poland and the UK), INS data shows.