A major “agriculture opportunity” covered by a fine…

Buna ziua to everyone. Couple of days ago I read in the news that European Union fined Romania with 8,4 million euro. The reason was the country’s delay of the payments to the owners of agricultural lands based on how many hectare they own. The institute which had to pay by end of June 2008 is called APIA and the money comes directly from European Union. Romania must present its arguments until 10 of March, which is next week.
It is definitely not my business to talk a lot about this specific issue, but I take advantage of this news so as to present to you a major opportunity for Romania, which was not exploited so far: The absorption of the billions addressed to owners of agricultural lands!

The Greek example
If you did not know yet, more or less all the decisions for contributions but European Union guarantee that every citizen of E.U., from Portugal to Romania and from Ireland to Malta, will receive the same amount of money when the reason is the same. So, what happens in Greece, it will happen in Romania too. “And what happened in Greece?” many people usually tell me, when I mention this example… Let us check:
– In 1981, when my country entered in E.U. (that time it was the “Common Market” or something) the agricultural areas were some the poorest of Greece (similar to Romania).
– As Europe is paying directly to the pocket of the land owner very serious amounts every year (from 1982 until 2005 based on the kilos of production, now based on the land surface the owner has) people started having serious guaranteed incomes.
– They were approved by banks for loans, they bought new machinery (with European contribution to 50%), built new homes, bought a tractor and additional 1-2 cars per family (these cars except the tractor used to be called “race cars” by them) etc.
– The ones with little more brain inside their heads, used the European contributions again (50 – 90% that time, I think 30 – 50% now) so as to invest on their lands, to exploit them better, to increase productivity etc.
– The agricultural cities became very strong for almost 2 decades and the capital of agriculture in Greece, Larisa city, is still considered a very rich area.
– Larisa has the second highest consumption of coffee per capita in Europe, if you go there at noon you will find hundreds of coffee shops full of people (thousands of “farmers” have stopped working since many years, they just collect the easy money by E.U. and they send emigrants to work on their fields), some of the most expensive cars in Greece and in general a very high status of life.
– After 20 years, many problems started to appear too. As the majority of the owners received as much money as possible but they invested 0 on their lands, when E.U. reduced the amounts, they started suffering.
– Today, 27 years later, the Greek agricultural sector needs “demolish and reconstruct from 0 point”, as the country did not really have any policy for the future. But still, with 1.000.000 problems, endless structural mistakes etc, it still provides a high income to hundreds of thousands of people, this is why even with the problems, the situation in tens of minor Greek cities is much better than it used to be.
– The ones who took advantage of the first “20 golden years” changed their life for good. But even the ones who were just consuming easy money, lived 2 decades of peace, with high income, 0 worries and not major problems about their income source.

Romania can do it better
So, if Romania will finally start absorbing European funds, directing them to the land owners, it has a golden chance to change the status of life of thousands of people, hundreds of thousands. The sources are a lot, enough for everyone, until 2013 at least. There is a serious opportunity for the agricultural lands to become something like a “bond” for their owners, with a fixed income arriving every year to their pockets.
Romania will receive 30 – 35 billion euro by European Union until 2013. 10 billion out of this is allocated to investments in agricultural sector. Things here can be created in a very organized way and the future of many areas can change forever, if of course the country will pay enough attention to this target.
Agriculture is one of Romania’s competitive advantages for the future. Soon I will tell you more about it…