Romania is a country of peasants, with a long deep history in peasant agriculture, which effects everything in the country, including its art, culture, and the way Romanians think. This has survived despite the best efforts of past empires and communists to destroy it. Today peasant culture remains the bedrock of the Romanian people in a changing time. Romanian agriculture today is plagued by many problems. Some of the problems are a result of underdevelopment, and some of them having to do with the communist history. The problems we see as having the largest effect on Romania today are: the lack of vision behind policies, the poor implementation of regulations and the lack of stability, the dichotomy between large and small farmers in Romania, the persistence of poverty and aging in the Romanian countryside, a lack of quality rural development, bureaucratic and credit issues, import and export disparities with other European countries, some specific environmental issues, and regional differences within Romania. The Common Agricultural Policy was created to build a flat and fair agricultural market across Europe which could keep Europe food-secure. The CAP has been successful at its goals in Western Europe, but now faces a myriad of challenges. It has been very difficult to implement the CAP in new market states such as Romania, and the results have been varied and undetermined so far. In Romania, the CAP has mostly benefited the large farmers who were already thriving before EU accession, and for most of the small farmers in Romania, there has been little effect. This is partly because of the way the CAP is structured and partly a result of implementation (or a lack of implementation).