The ban on grain imports from Ukraine will not solve the problems of Moldovan farmers, but will lead to additional problems, said Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Vladimir Bolea. According to him, the imposition of a ban on Ukrainian grain will lead to the imposition of a ban on the export of fruit and vegetables from the Republic of Moldova by the Ukrainian authorities, IPN reports.
The farmers in Moldova threaten with protests and ask the Government to align itself with the European Commission’s decision to temporarily restrict grain imports from Ukraine. Minister Vladimir Bolea said that this will not happen for now, but the flow of grain imports from Ukraine will be monitored constantly.
“We reached the conclusion that the Ministry of Agriculture, together with the Customs, will monitor the situation and once in two days we will inform farmers about the quantities imported from Ukraine as the farmers are concerned about the 15 million tonnes that Ukraine has in store and about the potential of 50 million tonnes of the new harvest. We must avoid the storage facilities in the Republic of Moldova being flooded. That’s why, regardless of what is going on around us and in order to safeguard the interests of our farmers, we will take the required measures to protect the market,” Vladimir Bolea stated in the program “Emphasis on Today” on TVR Moldova channel.
The minister said that any ban imposed on grain imports from Ukraine will lead to bans on Moldovan products.
“The ban on imports from Ukraine will not solve anything today, will not lead to lower selling prices for farmers in the Republic of Moldova and will not offer lower cost prices. So, such a solution would have produced no results. But the Ukrainians would have banned the export of fruit and vegetables and a lot would have been lost. The profit would have been ephemeral and the loss would have been guaranteed. But we will constantly monitor the situation together with the Customs so as to keep our finger on the pulse as an explosion of imports cannot take place in two days,” explained Vladimir Bolea.
The minister of agriculture and food industry also announced that in order to support the farmers, the Subsidization Fund will be raised by 100 million lei when the state budget is amended.
