The sale of land has put whole communities in the woodshed. It is especially about the poor villages in the north of Moldova where the only wealth of the people was the lots received by law 18. Without any source of subsistence many locals either went abroad or endure poverty.
Over 2/3 of Dimăcheniu’s agricultural area was sold PHOTO Cosmin Zamfirache
For millions of Romanians, land is the most important resource. It is about the majority of the inhabitants of the village, where land ownership means both food and income. Especially with Romania’s accession to the European Union, agricultural farms multiplied, became better organized and with better productions. Many locals, especially from the north of Moldova, live by selling cow’s milk, and the land helps them to feed their animals. Even the elderly who can no longer work the land support themselves from the leases received from the big farmers, in exchange for giving up the agricultural area. As the mayors, villagers and small farmers show, the villages where the peasants still have land are prosperous localities. Where people have sold their only source of livelihood, poverty haunts them and lives on welfare and child benefits. This is the dramatic secret of poverty in many rural localities in Romania.
“More than two-thirds of the locals have sold their land. How can they not be poor?”
One of the most affected by poverty is Botoșani county, an eminently agricultural area. However, in the last two decades, there are rural sectors in Botoșani County that have seen a special development, rich communes. And the main source of wealth is agriculture itself, practiced now with ultra-modern means by local farmers who have accessed European funds or actually borrowed from banks to technology themselves. However, there are also rural areas in the county, which confirm the sad reputation of Botoșani. Among them is the Dimăcheni commune, one of the poorest in Romania.
It is an area where there are almost no economic agents and it is among the most socially assisted in the county. Jobs exist only in agriculture, and those are limited. Marinel Moruz, a small farmer, who became the mayor of the locality, says that the reason for the abject poverty in which the people of the commune live is the sale of land.
Poverty is a consequence of the sale of land PHOTO Cosmin Zamfirache
“A locality that loses its property makes it clear that then the world is very poor. The town of Dimăcheni has 2/3 of the agricultural area sold. I think this is the most important thing that led to the impoverishment of this commune. I’ll give you an example: in the communes where they haven’t alienated the land, the population lives very well. I am a small farmer from this commune. There could be at least 40 more families like me. With this business you can also do something in your community. You can build a nice house, a fence, send your children to school. We have always been subjected to poverty for this reason, because we sold the land.”, says Daniel Moruz, a small farmer but also the mayor of Dimăcheni commune.
Given that agriculture is the only source of income in Dimăcheni, and most people are left without land, anyone can imagine how things are. The luckiest are those who leased the land to the big farmers in the county, some foreigners, some Romanians, but also those who still manage to work it. Each household is still left with the garden around the house, which provides subsistence agriculture.
“People were out of the wild. They were happy to eat salami”
Most of the locals regret giving away the land. One of them, whom I found at the village store relaxing with a beer, tells how the commune became impoverished. “There were homely people here, I belonged to Corlăteni before the Revolution. After that they made us a separate commune. But then in the 90s came the craze to sell. There were people who bought land, big farmers, and foreigners as well as Romanians. They had money. And the people were out of the wild. They sold to have money. They were happy to eat salami, to buy a suit from the city. Yes, after that ready money. And the land is from where it is not”says the man from Botošan. Because of this, many young people went abroad. The rest struggle with poverty. Few manage. They have jobs in neighboring communes or with farmers. “The poor have gone. So what to do here. There are no factories here, the parents have sold the land. What to do, starve to death in the weft? With the land, at least you grow something on it, you raise milk cows and give them to the collection, you live. Or raise some sheep, make cheese, sell lambs. It’s something. Yes, no land, no job. They left”says another villager. And in this situation there are many locals from Dimăcheni but also from other poor communes, especially from Moldova or Oltenia.
Fertile soil, only good for agriculture
To top it off, many villagers preferred to sell their land, even though in Botoșani there are particularly fertile soils that can support entire families. Botoșani County has over 400,000 hectares of agricultural land, some of which, including the Mileanca chernozium, with a quality that is hard to match. “In Botoşani county, there are some of the best soils in Romania. We are talking here about the cambic chernozem of Mileanca. It is a land with amazing agricultural properties. This type of soil found in the fertile plains around the Botoşani rivers is pure gold for those who want to do agriculture. The main highlight is the Lunca Prutului, which goes down to Galati”says the head of the Agricultural Directorate, Cristian Delibaș. Most of the large farmers who have incorporated large areas of land in Botoșani, especially through purchase and lease, are Romanians. There are also Italian, Austrian or American investors who do business in agriculture on an area of about 20,000 hectares.
