Agriculture in the Black Sea Region

Romania: "Don't turn off the lights" in agricultural research

12.04.2013

Specialists of the Research/Development Station for Fruit Growing and Horticulture in Cluj-Napoca, together with colleagues from institutions with the same agricultural profile from Blaj, Livada, Bistrita, Iernut, Targu-Mures and Turda (all in the western part of the country) urged the Government and the Parliament to ban restitution in kind of the state owned land, now under the administration of agricultural research units because they have a strategic role in the economic development of the country.

"We urge you, as responsible for the country's destiny, 'Don't turn off the lights' in Romanian agricultural research," say the specialists who have recently addressed a memoir to the members of the Executive and of the Parliament.

Fruit growing specialists in Cluj-Napoca, steadily rewarded with gold and silver medals, both in the country and abroad, for their brilliant results in this field, are facing - one never knows for how many times in the past two decades - the danger to see their work and that of their predecessors wasted overnight and the land they cultivated with valuable fruit varieties, nationally representative - scattered or dismantled under the restitution legislation. They ought to celebrate, this year, 60 years since the setting up of the institution - of which 40 crowned with remarkable results, and the last 20 - involved in a titanic battle for survival.

Director of the Fruit Growing Research Unit Eugenia Harsan says she fully agrees that people should be compensated for expropriations after 1945, but not with land efficiently used by the Romanian scientific research and to the national benefit. The unit had 1,036 hectares in 1990 and, currently, it has only 168 hectares left. All surfaces taken from the research unit patrimony were well cared for, with famous orchards, bearing fruit. The losses for the unit budget were irretrievable.

Eugenia Harsan was surprised to learn that there are several budgetary institutions in Romania where the director has "skillfully arranged", in contempt of all, a salary of 11,000 euros per month, and the rulers turn their heads and look into another direction in front of such an abuse.

"11,000 euros is the one month payroll for the 35 employees of the Fruit Growing Research Unit. It is unnatural that a single civil servant wins as much as other 35 employees in the public sector, more valuable than him/her", says the director of the institution.

Cluj specialists, obtained this year gold and silver medals at the International Invention Salon in Bucharest, with the winter apple "Somesan" and "Veronica" rose.

The director also said that direct funding of research units was stopped for over 15 years. Disappearance of these units would result in irreparable loss for the gene patrimony of maize, spring barley, soybeans, red clover, vine, pear, apple, cherry, plum trees, red onion, autumn cabbage, tomatoes, and so on, but also of the traditional breeds of cattle, with "Baltata romaneasca", swine, with "Bazna" and "Mangalita", and sheep, with "Tigaia de regiune".

"Removing from the market of the Romanian varieties very well adapted to environment conditions here has led to import of hybrids. Their introduction and of foreign breeds, without barriers, also led to the" importation "of virus and fungal diseases needing quarantine, with serious consequences on agricultural production on larger surfaces. It's imperative to access European funds in 2014 for the agricultural research", Eugenia Harsan also says.

AGERPRES