The measures identified to overcome the problems faced by the protesting farmers should be targeted and should not affect the work of the other farmers, said Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Vladimir Bolea. According to him, the authorities discuss with representatives of banks and the nonbank financial sector so as to prevent the bankruptcy of the farmers who either failed to obtain a crop owing to the drought or are confronted with small selling prices of agricultural products, IPN reports.
The minister admitted that the problems faced by the farmers are pressing and assured that the authorities are looking for solutions. He said that it takes time to reach final decisions as the difficulties of each farmer need to be examined separately.
“The problem is real and is divided into two. We speak about the farmers who have documents showing that they experienced drought in summer, didn’t obtain a harvest and cannot make payments even if they are bona fide farmers. These farmers already started to file applications to the Chamber of Commerce to get a force majeure certificate and stop the execution. There are also farmers who didn’t experience a drought and obtained a harvest, but have very low selling prices and very larger production costs. We must come to terms with banks, lenders, the nonbanking system. The measures should be targeted so that other farmers and their economic relations are not affected. This year the made investments are larger than in 2022,” Vladimir Bolea stated in the program “Emphasis on Today” on TVR Moldova channel.
On Wednesday, the executive director of the Association “Force of Farmers” Alexandru Slusari announced that the farmers will be waiting for Prime Minister Dorin Recean and Minister of Agriculture Vladimir Bolea in the central square of Chisinau at 11 a.m. If the authorities ignore their demands, the farmers will mount new protests.
“The problem is complex and involves many players, such as the association of banks, insolvency mangers, the nonban association. We asked everyone to provide information about the number of files related to lending for the past five years and about how many famers reached insolvency. We cannot generalize and speak about this specific problem,” said Vladimir Bolea.
Hundreds of farmers from all the country’s districts demand that the Government should impose a moratorium on the calculation of penalties, forced execution of obligations and launch of insolvency procedures for grain and oilseed producers until October 31, 2024, and that 1 billion lei from the 2024 Subsidization Fund should be distributed to farmers.
