Vegetable growers who grow in protected areas have received the news that they will be able to apply for support in the second cycle as part of the program known as “Tomato”. Next year, on the other hand, could bring real challenges for small farmers.
Tomatoes were a profitable crop for some farmers, harmful for others PHOTO: IP archive
The program to support the production of vegetables grown in protected areas, known as “Tomato”, will also exist in the “autumn version”, vegetable growers who grow tomatoes, bell and/or long peppers and/or donuts, cucumbers, green beans, lettuce , spinach or green onions on at least 1,000 square meters and will receive a de minimis aid of 1,000 euros. The condition is to capitalize, with supporting documents, a minimum quantity (stipulated in the normative act) until January 31, 2025.
The de minimis aid could be granted for the last time in this form, with the Minister of Agriculture, Florin Barbu, declaring on several occasions that he is preparing a new version of this program. According to the new vision, the aid would be granted for all the area cultivated with vegetables in protected areas, under the conditions of the program. Today, no matter what area they cultivate, farmers receive this de minimis aid (which for tomatoes grown in the spring reached 3,000 euros) only for 1,000 square meters/cultivated. Since the aid was not exactly small, many farmers resorted to “artificial devices” and broke up their farm, dividing between family members, and not only, areas of 1,000 square meters in order to collect the money.
Not all of them were able to do that, and those farmers who accessed European funds were the most affected, says farmer Ion Păunel, leader of the Olt Producers’ Union.
“The most disadvantaged in this program
Large farmers, similar access to “Tomato”
The challenge that perhaps small farmers are thinking less about now is that the managers of large greenhouses will have the same possibility to apply for de minimis aid, Păunel says.
“Let’s not forget that, for example, the greenhouses from Romania will also enter this time, with the entire surface. He had 3 hectares of greenhouses, 7 hectares of greenhouses, who has something like that in Romania, he could receive for 1,000 square meters, but now he will take the whole surface. And I think that’s how we stimulate the farmers as well. (…) Our competition comes from the country itself, because the big farmers, having all the necessary logistics, machinery and so on, have started cultivating areas with vegetables in the fields and building greenhouses and solariums. And they will work organized, with an invoice, with a receipt, with everything that the national legislation in force means. If we don’t realize that we need to join cooperatives, producer groups and so on, maybe in a few years it will be too late”Păunel warns.
Still waiting for promised deposits
Also the association in cooperatives, something already proven, will save the small producers from the need to build warehouses where they can sort, pack and label their products. Although they have already been promised for several years that the state will build warehouses in the large vegetable basins, the first advanced deadlines have been exceeded. In the latest version released from the top of the ministry, Casa Unirea, an entity recently “trampled” by anti-corruption prosecutors, was to be involved in the construction of these warehouses. The project itself was shown, but its implementation is still delayed, during which time the small producers only manage here and there to take their vegetables to the stores. We are still far, says Ion Păunel, not only from what is happening in the developed European states, but even from what our Bulgarian or Polish neighbors have achieved, the same is happening in Turkey, where impressive quantities of vegetables come from.
“In all these states there are these deposits, that they are made by the state, that they are private initiatives, that they are cooperatives. There is a vegetable exchange. And then we say – why do we have imports from these countries? Well, we have, because they go to the stock exchange, they go to a landscaped space, but from there a vegetable does not come in a package that is not disposable. And then I think that things would be regulated and we, the producers, would also have more success, the warehouses would also have the role of delaying it. Plus, any merchant knows that he can find vegetables in Pleșoiu, Scarîșora, Matca, only in these collection centers. And they leave with an invoice, a receipt, a certificate of quality, warranty, compliance and so on,” says Paunel.
Another step in this direction could be taken, the vegetable growers believe, if the forms of support were also aimed at supporting production, subsidizing the quantity delivered and traded with documents. A law in this sense has already been adopted, but its application is being postponed.
