State discriminates against small agricultural producers

The volume of subsidies provided by the state to small farmers during 2003-2009 was 6.3 times lower than for large, state and private agricultural producers, Info-Prim Neo reports. The discrimination was highlighted by participants in the public debates held by the Institute for Development and Social Initiative (IDIS) “Viitorul”. The first debates this autumn centered on the agricultural subsidies. IDIS expert Viorel Ghivriga said that the reform of the subsidization system did not remove all the existing shortcomings, including the favoring of a certain number of large economic entities when distributing subsidies. There are many subsidization funds administered by such state institutions as the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry, the Ministry of Finance, Moldresurse, Moldova-Vin Agency, Moldova’s Water Agency and others and the subsidy distribution process remains nontransparent, both as regards the recipients and the members of the selection commissions. The creation of the Payments and Interventions in Agriculture Agency, which would concentrate all the dispersed funds and implement common standards on the distribution of subsidies, is postponed for unknown reasons. The impact of the state measures aimed at supporting the agricultural producers is not known. Representatives of producers’ organizations and consultancy companies and specialists in agribusiness said that the subsidy distribution process is indeed nontransparent. Though they promised, the government and the Agriculture Ministry did not publish the lists of recipients of subsidies for 2007-2009 and the lists of members of the local and national subsidy distribution commissions. Iurie Fala, specialist of AGROinform, said the fact that the large producers receive larger subsidies from the state shows that the there is no well-planned state strategy for developing small agricultural companies, which can develop and be more flexible to the market demands. Vasile Myzenko, the chairman of the National Farmers’ Federation AGROinform, considers that the subsidization policy must be aimed at increasing revenues in the agricultural sector and rural areas in general. “What kind of subsidization is this when 90% of the money goes to large producers that can manage on their own?” asked Myrzenko. According to him, the poverty reductions strategies approved by the government fail due to such an attitude.