In 2022, the structure of the cost of agricultural products fluctuated little compared to the previous year. The share of crop production was 65.6% less than in the previous year, livestock production was 31.8% and more compared to the previous year. The share of agricultural services was 2.5%, the National Institute of Statistics reported on Tuesday.

In 2022, Romania increased the share of the production value of oil crops (+1.7 percentage points), potatoes (+1.3 percentage points) and cereals (+0.3 percentage points), decreasing the share of vegetable crops and melon crops (-2.3 percentage points), fodder plants (-0.5 percentage points), fruits and grapes (-0.4 percentage points), according to INS.

Over the past 5 years, Romania has doubled its food trade deficit to more than 4.3 billion euros, with excessively high imports of agri-food products becoming a vulnerable factor.

Banks, IFIs and credit guarantee funds could help companies in the agribusiness sector more, the cited analysis also shows, which shows that bank financing for the food industry has declined significantly (by 13%) in the banks’ portfolios, CNSM analysis shows.

More than 25 percent of agricultural production in Italy is carried out with the help of 370,000 seasonal workers, almost a third of whom are Romanians

Although agricultural companies have received a large volume of loans from banks, the European Commission and the European Investment Bank show that there is still a significant financing gap for Romanian agriculture (estimated at €2.2 to €5.3 billion), especially for long-term lending needs.

The measures proposed in the CNSM analysis concern, among other things, increasing the role of credit guarantee funds (which currently have 6 percent in agriculture and 2 percent in the food industry), revising the mechanism of deposit certificates, identifying potential national champions (of which only 56 percent are currently financed by banks).

• Over the past 20 years, Romania has on average “exported” €900 for every €1,000 of imported agricultural products, while Poles tend to export €1,500 for every €1,000 imported.

Romania’s agricultural exports largely depend on the production of three products: grains, seeds and animals, explains INS President Tudorel Andrej.

We export significant volumes of large-sized products with low market value and at the same time import, among other things, agricultural residues, which are mainly used in animal husbandry, as well as agro-food products obtained as a result of the industrial processing process. It is no accident that a deficit (the difference between the amount of export and import of agro-food products of this period) in the amount of more than 22 billion euros has accumulated in the post-December period from trade in agro-food products, the head of the INS also says.