Romania’s Agriculture Before the Accession

Romania cannot join the European Union with agricultural plots with sizes less than 1 hectare. The change of mentality is still difficult. In the rural areas there is already a tendency among people of not willing to get associated any more, people do not want production co-operatives any more, no more co-operative farms, everybody wants to farm his own piece of land! This mentality will be difficult to change; only the positive developments that may appear will change this situation. At more than 15 years after the communist period, agriculture is affected by chronic inefficiency, and most peasants farm their land with horse-drawn ploughs. The high costs, caused by the lack of technology and agricultural land fragmentation, led to domestic prices that exceed the world prices by about 40 euro/ton of product, which significantly influence the export activity