AMN demands speedy actions to spur farming

The Moldova Noastra Alliance (AMN) Party demands that the authorities remove all the obstacles hampering agrifood exports and dictating ridiculously low prices to peasants, who are taken advantage of by the large exporters. According to a statement read in Parliament on Thursday, the lack of adequate reactions from the state determines some investors to move their businesses outside the country. Furthermore, the peasants refuse to farm the land as their hands are tied under such circumstances. They are forced to give up their plots in exchange for trifling sums of money, ranging from 3,000 to 9,000 lei per hectare, while some persons and businesses that are favoured by the government own farms exceeding 20,000 hectares. AMN believes that, above all, small and mid-size businesses must be supported. The party has already submitted two legislative initiatives in this regard, suggesting the allocation of 300 million lei for the local authorities of second level to subsidise farming and payment of the land tax. Among the measures demanded are the liberalisation of exports of European winegrape varieties; development of the land market to the benefit of small farmers and an equitable price for land; annulment of penalties and tax fines for 2007 on landowners, etc. The AMN parliamentary group states that the legislature is obliged to take action by the end of the current session in order to make the Government adopt speedy measures to save the agriculture and the Moldovan state, the statement concludes. The AMN deputies have repeatedly requested that the Parliament examine the respective issues, but each time the communist MPs opposed them.