Drought Blights Romania's Hopes of Good Harvest

Additional unseasonally hot and dry weather may be good for sunbathers by the sea but it is bad news for Romania’s large agricultural sector.

An extended drought this summer has damaged most of the crops, mainly in Romania’s south and southeastern regions, experts say.

“The general situation is extremely worrying. We estimate losses of around 40-50 % for corn and sunflower crops, which will push up bread and food prices,” Culita Tarita landowner said.

“Other crops could as well be affected by the drought if it doesn’t rain soon,” he added.

Media reports say the country’s corn and sunflower crops may as well be down this year because of the lack of rain.

The corn harvest probably will drop to 7.5 million metric tons, the smallest since 2007, from 11.7 million tons last year, while the sunflower crop could fall to 1.4 million tons from 1.8 million tons, according to the economic newspaper “Ziarul Financiar”.

The government on Wednesday announced several measures to ease the effects, allocating 25 million euro to different projects to offset damage to crops caused by drought, Prime Minister Victor Ponta said.

Furthermore, the price that farmers have to pay for irrigation water is to be cut by 20 %.

Agriculture still plays a significant role in the Romanian economy, which is why droughts matter.

The country has an agricultural surface of 14.7 million hectares of which 9.3 million hectares are arable.

Almost half of Romania's 21 million people still live in rural areas. But agriculture has long lacked investment and irrigation networks, while other problems include fragmentation of holdings, property-related lawsuits and obsolete technology.

Most of the country's 2.8 million private farmers own less than hectares.

While farmers pray for rain, there is no sign of it coming. Temperatures in Bucharest and the rest of southern Romania are expected to reach over 35 degrees this weekend. High temperatures for the end of end of July are usually closer to 30 degrees.