The Dubasari farmers’ access to their farmland situated beyond the Rybnitsa-Tiraspol road has been restricted by the Transnistrian administration since this spring. The farmers complain that they cannot fulfill their contractual obligations to the peasants who leased the land out to them and that risk remaining without a source of livelihood in winter.

In a news conference at IPN, land owner Petru Nirca said that the farmers have kept silent, but now they are in a situation from which they see no way out. “I don’t think that the representatives of Chisinau and Tiraspol cannot find a solution to this problem at the negotiating table so as to no more involve the farmers in their political games. We asked them to identify solutions as soon as possible so that we can prepare the land for the spring works,” he stated.

Sergiu Grijanovshi, who represents over 300 farmland owners from Pohrebea village of Dubasari district, said that there are about 300 hectares of land beyond the Rybnitsa-Tiraspol road, which is 50% of the villagers’ land. The people remain without sources of livelihood. The state should compensate the farmland owners for their losses assessed at 13 million lei and should ensure access to their property.

“We fear that the land will become property of the Transition economic entities. This spring we prepared 75 hectares of land for the agricultural works, but individuals sowed sunflower seeds on this area, based on a decision of the administration of Dubasari. I’m sure that this precedent will lead to our dispossession of land,” stated Sergiu Grijanovschi.

Andrei Agatiev, farmer from Cocieri, believes that the current government has no respect for those who struggled for Moldova’s independence in 1992. “They do not respect the people from the left side of the Nistru, those who bear in mind the memory of those sad events. Now the farmers have neither sources of livelihood nor future,” said Andrei Agatiev, who is a war veteran.

Asked by the journalists if there are farmers who signed lease contracts with the Transnistrian administration for the land located beyond the Rybnitsa-Tiraspol road, the representatives of the farmland owners said none of them signed such contracts as this would mean losing the ownership right over their land.