Sustainable Development Strategy of Agriculture and Rural Areas in Romania on Medium and Long Term - Rural Romania XXI –

In the present strategy draft, our concerns are the problems of agriculture and rural development in the conditions of Romania’s joining the European Union. We are facing a great compatibility dilemma between the Common Agricultural Policy, with its objectives adapted to the current situation of agriculture in the European Union, and the situation of Romania’s agriculture, which should have totally different objectives compared to those of the EU agriculture. Romania needs a multifunctional, competitive agriculture, at the same time complementary to the agriculture of the other EU Member States, as well as main decisions regarding the support to different farming systems under competition, among which the most important are: food production versus biofuel production; conventional agriculture versus biotechnological agriculture; conventional mfarming versus organic farming; modern agriculture versus traditional agriculture; agriculture on family farms versus agriculture on very large-sized farms; semi-subsistence (subsistence) agriculture versus commercial agriculture. The rural area can carry out its supply, recreation and equilibrium functions, much desired by the society, only if it remains an attractive and original living space, equipped with: a good infrastructure; a viable agricultural and forestry sector; local conditions favourable to non-agricultural economic activities; an intact environment with a well-cared landscape.