He runs a 100m-euro agricultural business, has 600 employees andis among Romania's three largest farmers. Mihai Anghel says he didan extraordinary thing considering most farmers are working ahectare of agricultural land, but that he did not do much takinginto account a normal agriculture, like in the rest of Europe.
Most of the times, he talks to people on the phone, from thefields. He rarely comes to Bucharest to meet his partners ornegotiate a financing line with a bank. And when he comes his timeis limited. He does not want to talk much about himself, but ratherabout the situation of agriculture, saying he feels"disappointed".
"We must talk about Romania's agriculture as about something ofthe past. Many have said it and I'm saying it too, we have apotential to feed 80 million people, but that we are importing atleast 50% of what we eat. We've so far destroyed everything, theland is fragmented like nowhere else, we're working like in theMiddle Ages, with horses, and we're largely depending on what weget from others. One can only talk about an economy when one relieson a product destined for sale. When one makes a product tomaintain existence, this is called survival," Anghel says.
"Romania has never been so low," he says. "We have been goingdown for the past 20 years, despite some years of growth, 2007 and2008. The rural world has been destroyed (...)," says Anghel,blaming the lack of strategy and the fact that everything has beendone chaotically. "We haven't had any strategy. In agriculture, onemust start with associative forms (...)," believes Anghel.
Should agriculture start to function, we would not get anyresults earlier than 20 years from now, believes the owner ofCerealcom Dolj.
Agricultural potential has been ignored, though. Romania hasnine million hectares of agricultural land, and working it wouldmean the development of agricultural production and subsequently ofrelated fields.
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