Trends concerning agriculture reorganisation and development in Botoşani county after 1990

Abstract

Botoşani County has a high agricultural potential, with an agricultural area of 78.8 % out of the total county area and an average agricultural land per capita at 0.98 hectares. The agriculture occupies an important place in the economy structure of Botoşani County. However, big changes have taken place since 1990, such as: recognition of the property rights by the Land Law of February 1991, which has determined the change of the property structure in favour of the private property. This phenomenon is also observed in the field of animal husbandry. Regarding the endowment with agricultural machinery, we can observe that land owners did not have sufficient financial resources to purchase different machinery, which influenced negatively the farming technology for plant cultivation and the animal husbandry sector. Other relevant matters such as agricultural land division led to the apparition of a very high number of small plots territorially dispersed, which could not allow crop rotation and using high-tech technologies, with a high mechanization and automation of agricultural labour. All these aspects have had negative consequences on crop production level, which was unstable during last years, on crop structure, leading to the disappearance of some crop varieties from farmers’ fields, which was mainly replaced by the maize culture and also to an insignificant number of agricultural associations and a decreasing number of farm animals. An important factor was the implementation of a system of subsidies for farmers after Romania’s accession to the European Union, which has led to the agricultural production development and reorganisation in Botoşani County. Taking into account of all these aspects, the survey has been shown the most important changes produced in the agriculture of Botoşani County after 1990.