Romanian Agriculture Between Subsistence, Large Associations and - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Romanian Agriculture Between Subsistence, Large Associations and Land Grabbing

Stefan Dorondel Francisc I. Rainer Institute of Anthropology Bucharest & CRASSH, University of Cambridge

Land grabbing in Eastern Europe

• Aland grabbing – a new topic (Development

2011; The Journal of Peasant Studies 2011)

• Scarce data and studies on this issue in

Eastern Europe (see WB Report 2011)

• A suitable area for land grabbing (Viser and

Spoor 2011)

• Studies on Russia and Kazakhstan so far (Viser

and Spoor 2011)

Romania

• 18.3 million ha of arable land
• Around 8% bought by foreign companies
• Unchecked data (sources: economic journals

and newspapers)

• Contradictory data concerning land grabbing

in Romania

Land investors in Romania

The Company Country of Origin Surface (ha) Prio Foods Portugal 25,244 Agro Chirnoghi & Maria Trading Libya 25,000 DN Agrar Holland 11,000 FirstFarms Denmark 9,500 Ingleby Company Denmark 8,632 Germanagrar Germany 8,000 Assiguraioni Generali Italy 4,600 Agrarius AG Germany 3,700 Rabobank Holland No data Pharos Financial Group The United Arab Emirates 50,000 Source: Adevarul, 11 March, 2012

Other reports

Country Surface percentage (from the total of 700 000 ha) Italy 24,29 Germany 15,48 Arab countries 9,98 Hungary 8,17 Spain 6,22 Austria 6,13 Denmark 4,52 Source: Capital, 21 May 2012

Question

• Why not land grabbing in Romania on a larger

scale?

• Possible reasons:
• legislation (Constitution)
• land fragmentation (policy of land reform in

Romania: historical justice [restitution] and social justice [distribution] (Rabinowicz and Swinnen 1997)

Reasons

• emotional attachment to the land (Verdery

2005)

• Thus, 75% of the agricultural land worked

individually until 2005 (Mungiu-Pippidi 2010)

Răţeşti commune (Argeş County) before (left) and after (right)

decollectivization

Land fragmentation in a hilly village

Participatory map in a hilly village, southern Carpathians

Land ownership by age

Age of the landowner Land surface/ha 70 years old and over 1,134 million 70-60 years old 1,175 million 60-50 years old 1,154 million 40 and under 616 960 Source: Evz.ro, June 2012

A new type of land grabbing?

• Could large associations be considered as

grabbing land?

• Few returns from the land for farmers with

land into an associations

• 600 kg of cereals/year (= 133 euro/year/ha)
• Maybe land grabbing discussed also in terms
• f internal politics and social class not only in

terms of globalization and international markets?

Thank you very much for your patience!

Stefan Dorondel Email: dorondel@yahoo.com