After this year’s smaller wheat production, due to the drought, there are farmers who are convinced that demand will rise in 2010, and some of them even decided to increase surfaces. One example is Adrian Porumboiu, owner of Racova Com Agro Pan, one of the most important farmers in Romania, who cultivated some 40,000 hectares of wheat and rapeseed this autumn, as opposed to 29,000 hectares last autumn.
The group’s wheat production fell to 100,000 tons this year, from 150,000 tons in 2008, due to drought, which caused losses equivalent to some 42 percent of production.
Stefan Poienaru, owner of Agrofam Fetesti, one of the largest grain farmers in Southern Romania, with a surface of 17,000 hectares, said he maintained the same surface cultivated with wheat, namely 6,000 ha, but admits that at the market level, from data he has, surfaces have narrowed. “The price will rise next year, because this autumn cultivated surfaces dropped by some 300,000-400,000 ha,” said Poienaru.
“We could be facing a food crisis, as there will be no subsidies in 2010. In any case, the 2009 production was lower, due to drought, and grain prices were the lowest in recent years,” said Viorel Matei, the President of the National Federation of Agricultural Producers.
