A 1.5km road that connects an agricultural cooperative and the central road was built in Cimislia town with the contribution of the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Since 2001 until present, the IFAD provided over US$60 million for implementing social projects in Moldova, IPN reports.
In Cimislia, 25 farmers established a cooperative and planted about 80 hectares with vine and over 100 hectares with fruit trees. The vineyard and the orchard are situated outside the town. During the 12 years since their foundation, there was no appropriate road to make a connection with the central road.
“No company came with their own vehicles to buy fruit and grapes from us. When it started to rain, the people had to walk 1.5km until the main street to take a unit of transport and go home. We took our harvest from here by tractors. When it was wet, they got stuck in the mud,” said Gheorghe Baban, the agricultural cooperative’ leader. He added that he found out about the IFAD from TV and applied for financing.
Victor Rosca, director of the IFAD project implementation unit in Moldova, said the fund, besides agriculture, has an infrastructure development component. The road in Cimislia was built at a cost of 1.7 million lei, with the beneficiaries contributing 20% of this sum.
Attending the opening of the road, Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Vasile Bumacov said that Moldova’s agriculture enters a new development stage. Modern agriculture cannot exist without good infrastructure. Vasile Bumacov said a number of farmers face problems as regards the access way, while those who have modern refrigerators cannot go directly to the producers to buy goods.
About 25 applications are submitted annually to the IFAD. This year they plan to launch the IFAD 6 project and there will be provided more grants.
