The issue of farmers who experience difficulties in paying to creditors is treated responsibly and the approaches of all parties must be balanced so as not to disrupt creditors’ relations with farmers, said secretary of state at the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry Vasile Sarban after the second meeting of the commission for the analysis of problems invoked by farmers during the protests mounted in November 2023, IPN reports.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the commission analyzed the structure of categories of farmers who meet with difficulties in paying and in fulfilling their obligations, based on lists of economic agents received from relevant associations and the preliminary reports provided by commercial banks. The lists submitted by the associations were divided by creditors and sent separately to them. Some of the lending institutions asked for more time to provide the requested information. So as to have a detailed approach, when all data is received, it will be generalized and made available to associations.

According to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Republic of Moldova, about 200 calls have been received so far from farmers affected by drought, who inquired about the procedure for requesting the Force Majeure Certificate. Of this number, about 100 farmers submitted files, but these need to be supplemented with particular documents and farmers were notified of this.

At the first meeting held by the commission on January 9, the creditors were provided with information about 121 economic agents (according to data presented by the associations) that face problems in fulfilling the payment obligations under contracts with banking institutions, nonbanking institutions and various suppliers. By then, three banking institutions and one input supplier presented the implemented solutions. Most of these include the modification of the initial payment conditions to make rates more manageable for farmers.

Then, the executive director of the Association “Farmers’ Force” Alexandru Slusari expressed his dissatisfaction with the fact that the authorities promised an individual approach to each farmer who is unable to pay, but in reality this does not happen. “As far as I can see, someone in the Ministry decided to send the whole list of personalized debt figures to all banks, microfinance organizations and input suppliers. If so, it is something very serious. I want to know who made this abusive and bad decision, which worsened the situation of those put on the list,” Alexandru Slusari said then.