Growing corn in areas with little rainfall, in particular the southern part of Moldova, could be banned by law, announced Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Vladimir Bolea.
During a press briefing on Monday, the minister said that southern Moldova typically gets 200-300 mm of rainfall, whereas corn needs 580-600 mm to thrive.
“We are going to prescribe, at the law level of law I suppose, that if you get less than 600 or 550 mm of rainfall in your area, you must not grow corn. So, I guess we need to get to this point, because if you don’t have an agronomist to tell you this, then it will be us the central government to tell you, at the level of law, that you may not grow corn in the South of Moldova. You may not, full stop. And this is not something new. This piece of wisdom has been around for the past two thousand years”, said Vladimir Bolea.
He added that, while millions of euros have been spent in Moldova to fully revamp centralized irrigation systems, there are farmers who haven’t embraced the practice, and still they demand compensation for the loss of crops due to the drought. Farmers who had irrigation systems available, but failed to use them will become ineligible for compensation, the minister also announced.
