Culita Tarata: Romanian agriculture is decapitalised

Businessman Culita Tarata, owner of TCE 3 Brazi, which operates around 65,000 hectares of farming land in Insula Mare a Brailei and Neamt county, expects turnover to shrink by 30-35% amid a weak agricultural year that saw grain prices plummet.

“Though we were able to harvest on time and wheat quality was above the national average, we still had lower output than last year, of 4 tonnes/ha, from 7 tonnes/ha in 2008,” stated Tarata, who says the price of a little above 100 euros/tonne was also way below last year’s level.

Moreover, barley crops were unprofitable, with an output of 3 tonnes/ha and a price of 95-100 euros/tonne. Last year, the price stood at 241 euros/tonne, according to the National Statistics Institute.

While farmers are counting on this autumn’s maize and sunflower production, the low price estimated for these crops will significantly erode agriculture players’ turnover.

Against the price forecast for this autumn, the two crops, each of 10,000 hectares, will bring Tarata over 15m euros.

“We’ll see turnover go down by 30-35% year-on-year, because we had a difficult year both as regards agriculture, and the timber industry, where we registered losses,” he says.

The businessman, who also runs TC Compilimpex company on the wood market, with 400 employees, last year posted total turnover worth 81.5m euros, with 75% coming from agriculture. This year, the group’s turnover is expected to reach 62m euros, as much as generated by the farming business alone in 2008.

As for Romanian agriculture, Culita Tarata outlines a gloomy picture: this year, farmers will cultivate only half of the autumn rapeseed, wheat and barley areas because of the lack of financing, with next year’s production to be hence even lower than this year’s.

“Farmers are decapitalised. I don’t know whether half of the area cultivated in autumn will be sowed this year unless farmers are compensated for the losses caused by drought in the 2008-2009 agricultural year (…),” Culita Tarata says.