The farmers from the central and southeastern districts, who were affected by drought and hail, express their dissatisfaction with the measures taken by the Government. They intend to mount protests in a number of districts of the country on August 11 in connection with the disastrous situation in agriculture.

Contacted by IPN, Andrei Dînga, farmer from Ștefan Vodă, said the farmers from about 14 districts will come together in six places, including national roads. If their demands are not satisfied, the protest will be extended to Chisinau.

In a note addressed to the Government and the Ministry of Agriculture, the farmers ask to take measures to stabilize the macroeconomic situation in the agricultural sector. “The farmers in central and southeastern Moldova already used up all the possibilities of identifying financing resources for paying taxes into the budget, paying salaries to employees, accumulating salary arrears for several months, paying the rising debts, purchasing parts, diesel fuel, phytosanitary products and seeds for entering the new agricultural year in the hope that it will be better,” says the agricultural producers’ call.

They ask that the financial resources allocated for compensating the farmers for their financial losses should be of at least 3,000 lei per hectare.

The farmers insistently ask to declare a state of agricultural emergency in central and southern Moldova by unconditionally releasing force majeure certificates to farmers and to suppliers of agricultural inputs as this will enable the whole agricultural sector to reschedule the debts to creditors.

The farmers also request to implement new regulations with the possibility of returning or ceding the VAT accumulated in accounts for years so as to pay the debts to suppliers, to exempt them from paying salary and land taxes and to institute a tax holiday for the first six months of 2021.

They said they disapprove of the regulations concerning the method of providing compensations for alleviating the effects of the natural disasters on the harvest of 2020 as this is intricate and does not cover the whole agricultural year.

The agricultural producers ask to call an extraordinary sitting of Parliament so as to adopt decisions to implement their demands or they will continue the protests during an unlimited period of time.