Lefteast
Although the goal of the newly proposed Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is to stabilise farmers’ income and revitalise rural society, it continues to disproportionately favour large agribusinesses. Capital concentration pushes small farmers out of business, contributing to rural degradation. Especially impacted are rural communities in the Czech Republic and Hungary due to a combination of […]
“The moment the more corporations are coming and the market players are coming, the prices will go further down. So as a result, when the input cost is very high, the farmers will not have the desired output. So I think the whole contention is around the fact that the laws are to benefit the corporate houses and the commercialization of agriculture. That’s the one, the second is that the minimum support prices structure and the government subsidies for the farmers, that will end, slowly the government will withdraw from it.”
Note from LeftEast editors: this article is an extended translation by the author of a text, which initially appeared in Italian in Rivista “il Mulino”. Two months ago, farmers’ organisations across Europe (and beyond) started to raise the spectre of ‘empty supermarket shelves’ due to the lack of seasonal labour for the harvest of crops. […]
Note from LeftEast editors: The article was first published online by the German magazine KATAPULT on 30. April 2020. It was translated into English by Philipp Lottholz. Not even a pandemic should endanger the Germans’ asparagus consumption. Even if Romanian seasonal workers bear the health costs for it – or die. On April 11, a […]
This article has been published in collaboration with Bilten. According to the Eurostat statistics for 2016, one third of all farms in the EU can be found in Romania- roughly 3,600 thousand agricultural holdings. Similarly, the country boasts the largest share of labor force employed in agriculture in the EU, a staggering 26% of the […]