Leonard-Alin Plesea is a young farmer from the Jirlau Commune, famous across the country for its bountiful vegetable production. Eager to continue his family’s traditions, he attended a vegetable farming course and acquired practical experience at his family’s farm. In 2009 he leased 4 hectares of agricultural land from his...

A short Video about local partnerships between consumers and small-scale farmers

After communism Romania launched capitalist reforms in its huge agricultural sector

In this UN Decade on Biodiversity (2011-2020), it is timely to celebrate the exceptional biodiversity of the hay meadows of Transylvania and the living rural communities that created and manage them. But we should also consider why – after surviving for a thousand years during a turbulent history of invasions,...

Following the launching of the public debate regarding the future of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) at the European level and as discussed in the additional meeting of the Coordination Committee of the European Network for Rural Development of 14 April 2010, the Romanian National Rural Development Network (NRDN) has...

Sofia, Bulgaria - Visitors to the first Terra Madre Balkans event, which opened in Sofia today, were greeted with specialty cheeses, artisan breads, jam and honey. The food fair for small-scale farmers and producers, devised by the organization Slow Food and supported by WWF, kicked off in the Botanical Garden...

The motivation behind the ENRD's consideration of this topic and this background paper, which raises some key issues for further debate, is two-fold. Firstly, the last two enlargements in 2004 and 2007 brought millions of small farms into the EU, most of which are either subsistence farms (SFs) or semi-subsistence...

Romanian rural areas contain the highest level of agricultural workers in the European Union, resulting in the challenge of stimulating non-agricultural employment. This paper uses the methodology of policy evaluation to analyse the influence of 3 measures the CAP. From an objectives tree to reveal the objectives of the programme...

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...

Structural changes in agriculture have been going on in many countries all over the world during the last two decades. Developments were forced by radical reforms of countries concerned resulting in to establishing new farm structure. Large scale farm systems were broken up and tens of millions of small farms...

Farming in the area of Maramureş has created a land of impressive scenery and rich cultural heritage. The unique patchwork of forests, orchards, wetlands and grasslands forms the second largest protected area in Romania. This is a semi-natural landscape, the result of a long tradition of traditional farming and shepherding,...

Small producers, who sell their own products from their own farms, have been making and selling their products for many generations. They believe in the health of their products. But in certain cases, production and storage conditions can lead to serious food poisoning, even though the producer/seller who eats the...

This report is produced as part of collaboration between the European Forum on Nature Conservation and Pastoralism (EFNCP) and WWF Danube-Carpathian Programme (WWFDCP). Both organisations recognise the importance of certain farming systems for nature conservation. Between 2006 and 2008 a project was executed aiming at finding out at a local...

The paper analyses the impact of institutional factors on the agricultural sales of the individual farmers in Romania. The analysis relies on the Agricultural Household Survey conducted in 15 villages in 2003 in Romania and on interviews with the agricultural engineers at the village level. The study uses the social...

Romanian Agriculture went through major transformations after the political changes of December 1989, due especially to the structural reorganization of land ownership. Agrarian reform started in 1990 with the liquidation of the socialist cooperatives and regulated by the new land ownership law (No. 18/1991), along with a whole series of...

The life of a Romanian village