THE NECESSITY OF THE MODERNIZATION PROCESS CONTINUATION IN THE ROMANIAN AGRICULTURAL EXPLOITATIONS

Abstract

The structural modifications that Romanian agriculture had suffered during the 1998 and 2003 period, by transforming over 96% of the agricultural land in private property, determined the formation of new small and medium size exploitations. For the adhering preparation at the Agricultural Policy of the European Union, Romania succeeded in obtaining from the European Union no refundable financial assistance by the Special Pre-adhesion Program for Agriculture and Rural Development (SAPARD). By the SAPARD program, within the “Investment in agricultural farms” measure, during the 2003-2006 period, 612 modernization projects on the vegetal and zootechnic farms received financial help, the uppermost number of projects being for the “Field crops” under measure (360 projects), representing 59,95% of the total financial engagement of the measure, followed by the “Dairy cow/buffalo farms” under measure (164 projects), representing 19,68% of the total financial engagement of the measure. In Romania, the main agricultural exploitation form is the small rural household, with a medium surface of 1.8 ha agricultural land, representing 53% of the Romanian agricultural surface. The agricultural units with juridical personality have a medium surface of 282 ha and hold 43% of our country surface. Agricultural exploitations, especially those from the vegetal sector, are confronting an insufficient endowment (low number of tractors, harvest combine, agricultural machinery and equipments), as well as its high level of wear and tear and moral wear. Thus, the medium load for physic tractor is 58,6 ha arable land and the medium load for the combine is 80-90 ha arable land. Zootechnic exploitations are characterized by the household system or the half-intensive husbandry system, with a small number of animals, with reduced genetic performances, a system that doesn’t assure the hygiene and welfare conditions for the animals. The actual number of animals decreased continuous, thereby: with 7,8% at cattle, 28,5% at porcine and 11,4% at sheep, in 2005, accountable to the 2000 year.