AgriMin Chesnoiu: Romania, comfortable regarding level of internal cereal stocks until new harvest

Romania is in a comfortable position regarding the level of internal stocks until the new harvest, if we are referring to cereal, and the supply systems at the level of the European Union are working without major disturbances, said, on Thursday, after the Government sitting, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Adrian Chesnoiu."We are in a comfortable position regarding the level of internal stocks if we are referring to cereal. The supply systems at the level of the European Union are working without major disturbances. We had, in the previous period, constant analysis that we will continue at the Ministry of Agriculture to see the stage we are in with the growing of the autumn crops, and we are well. Over 90% of the cultures sown in autumn 2021 are in a normal state of vegetation. We started the spring sowing campaign and things are running well. These rains in April came and gave a particular vigor to the field and agricultural crops. From the perspective of results, the evaluations we're doing do not place us in the risk area from the point of view of food," said Chesnoiu.As regards price increases in the recent period for food items, the Minister emphasized that this happened "faster than some may have expected," but that "the moment we have a constant level of production, the pressure on ensuring agrifood products is lower and does not automatically imply price increases.""I think we're in the price increase wave, because for some products it happened faster than some may have expected and you know very well what the main causes are: the price increases in energy and gas, which muddled all domains of activity and started that snowball effect that reached, thus, agriculture and agrifood products. Through the interventions that the Romanian state is doing, in granting support to our farmers in view of maintaining the constant production level, but also the other types of support - the Support for Romanians Package, launched a week ago - will dampen, in time, and will slow down the tendency for price increase. In what regards the Agriculture Ministry, our main desire is to ensure the constant level of production. The moment we have that constant level of production, the pressure on ensuring agrifood products is lower and does not automatically imply price increases. We want these support programs to have effects as quickly as possible. These effects are mitigated depending on the type of situation we see," explained the dignitary.The Minister also explained that in regards to the price of tomatoes, the price decrease effects will be seen in the coming period, as Romanian farmers registered for the aid programme for tomatoes already started production.