The public association “Force of Farmers” on June 21 will mount a protest in the capital city to demand that the current government should implement measures to support the agricultural producers. The protests can be avoided if real progress is made in the negotiations with the state authorities, Ion Plămădeală, chairman of the association’s Administration Board, who is a farmer from Leova, stated in a news conference at IPN.
Ion Plămădeală noted that the current government in the election campaign promised to take measures to support the farmers. “Not only once they spoke about financial resources for the immediate refund of excise duties on diesel full, for the partial covering of cost of fertilizers and about many other support measures for the agro-industrial sector that can be implemented as a matter of urgency. But 11 months havce passed after the parliamentary elections. The association “Force of Farmers” ascertains with regret that the strategic sector that actually accounts for almost half of the exports of the Republic of Moldova, provides over 1/3 of the jobs in the economic sector and contributes 21% to the formation of the Gross Domestic Product continues to be fully neglected,” he stated.
“Amid the soaring prices of diesel fuel, fertilizers, pesticides, seeds and amid problems related to the storage and sale of agricultural products, when the given markets were monopolized, we had a number of meetings with the minister of agriculture and food industry, the head of the responsible parliamentary commission and other decision makers. We presented our concept of the mechanism for fully refunding the excise duty on diesel fuel and for partially covering the cost of fertilizers, including for famers, except for agro-holdings.”
The “Force of Farmers” also asked to increase the subsidies for building storage facilities for keeping and processing agricultural products, to allow exporting wheat as the big market players in the recent period imported large quantities of wheat from Ukraine and almost paralyzed the domestic market. It suggested urgently working out a national food security strategy with concrete measures for de-monopolizing the agrifood market, providing consistent support to small and medium-sized producers, industrializing small—scale farming.
“Regrettably, our dialogue with the government, decision makers didn’t end with palpable results. The regulations for the partial substitution of excise duties envision the payment of very small sums. When diesel fuel costs 31 lei a liter, the subsidy of 2% of the value of fuel is considered disrespect by many agricultural producers. The farmers refuse to file applications for this subsidy. Moreover, the procedure is very bureaucratized. The minister of agriculture practically cannot influence the strategic decisions concerning the development of the agrifood sector, while Misses Prime Minister and Missis President refused to have meetings with representatives of the association,” stated Ion Plămădeală.
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