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 Source: Adevarul , 11 March, 2012 The Company Country of Origin Surface (ha) Prio Foods Portugal 25,244 Agro Chirnoghi & Maria Libya 25,000 Trading 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

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 of 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