Farmers are unable to pay their debts to commercial banks and many of them risk going bankrupt, said Sergiu Stefanco, a farmer from Căușeni district, one of the leaders of the protests mounted in December 2023. The farmer called on the government to restrict the transit of Ukrainian grain through Moldova. He also demanded to impose a moratorium on the payment of loans that farmers had raised from commercial banks, IPN reports.
Sergiu Stefanco noted that none of the farmers’ demands discussed with the authorities at the end of 2023 have been satisfied. The state should restrict the transit of grain from Ukraine as wholesalers focus on Ukrainian grain, ignoring products from the domestic market.
“We asked to stop the transit of grain from Ukraine. The transit of grain from Ukraine has greatly affected the logistics of the Republic of Moldova. All the traders who bought grain from us moved to Ukraine. We stand aside and watch how the logistical capacity of the Republic of Moldova works for Ukraine. We cannot offer such low prices because our production prices are higher than the prices in Ukraine and Romania. We are affected. We cannot cover the costs. We requested that the transit should take place only by rail and at a customs post in the north of the Republic of Moldova, which our farmers do not use. Romania and Poland did this too,” Sergiu Stefanco stated in the program “In the Context” on the public TV channel.
The farmer also called on the authorities to impose a moratorium on the payment of loans, calculation of penalties, forced execution of obligations and initiation of insolvency proceedings in relation to micro, small and medium-sized farmers who grow cereal and oilseed crops. Sergiu Stefanco said that Romania took such a step, while the Moldovan authorities refuse to intervene.
“Our second demand was to impose a moratorium with regard to loans and debts. Dorin Recean, Maia Sandu and Vladimir Bolea said that they do not intervene in the work of the National Bank. My question to them is: then how was it possible to have another governor of the National Bank named in 48 hours? Why did they in a European country like Romania intervene and impose a moratorium, while in our country this is not possible? The biggest problem is that the government does not want to understand the gravity of the situation. We are experiencing payment difficulties. Banks have confirmed that farmers ran into difficulty with payments. One bank has publicly announced that 40% of its portfolio is represented by farmers and half of them are in default. That’s a lot. We asked for meetings with the governor of the National Bank. Nothing happened. We are waiting for a meeting with Prime Minister Dorin Recean. Nothing has happened. We expect the minister of agriculture to take actions,” said the farmer.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry announced that on January 22, 2024, the Agency for Intervention and Payments in Agriculture managed to pay about 155 million lei subsidies based on 878 applications for subsidies.
