EU agriculture commissioner dacian ciolos is looking to equalize payments across the eu. how can he do this when western europe is a higher cost of production ie labour, fertilizer,chemicals  which are all typically 30 % cheaper, land is only a fraction of british land cost  and have a lower cost of living  in romania.farm workers in his home country earn on 80 euro per week .eastern block countries in the eu will have a fierce competitive advantage in future compaired to us . the question is are we to accept lower eu payments which also put us at a competive disadvantage when grain prices drop  again.

TAF, I am afraid that a few of your assumptions are rather poorly grounded. I would suggest that we need to have a detailed appraisal of all the factors that impact upon the economics of farming, arable or otherwise in each country. The UK has a vast array of comparative advantages over Romania. Romania should be an agriarian food producing nation but it is importing vast amounts of its food. Why because the vast majority of its farming operations cannot compete with any other in the EU. Having said that, I do not agree that just 'levelling up' payments is the way forwards. Romania needs finance in other forms to direct payments. Also please note that at present Romania is working towards recieving 100% of the 'average' EU cereals payment by 2016. The payment was, however, based upon a wheat price x local yield. At the time of setting the payments, the local yields were only about 40% of the EU average so the payment will only ever reach 40% of the average. This is where the 'imbalance' came from. Anyway, even with the talk of levelling up, Romania might get to £200/ha by 2020!

stuart, its quite obvious that payments per acre are inappropriate for places like romania, where they wont bother growing anything, just pocket the cash.

its the same in the north and west of scotland, large  landowners will pocket the area payment and leave the land derelict.

Glasshouse, I will say that I do not believe that area payments are the answer for Romania. The powers that be need to go back a lot further in time and look at the simple post-war grant schemes. Romanian farmers need easy-to-access (ie. non bureaucratic) capital grants to rebuild their basic farming infrastructure (buildings, animals, machinery). Area payments provide a cash flow over time but the banks will not capitalise this into a loan so something else is required. There was of course a pre-EU accession grant system and a post-accession one but they made such a Horlicks of the whole thing that it was near inaccessible for the normal farmer that it was actually meant to be for. I would prefer them to fund a sensible grant scheme to do the re-building job and not to get the farmers fixated with area payments that they may then have to be weaned off.

the arable farmer:

labour, fertilizer,chemicals  which are all typically 30 % cheaper, land is only a fraction of british land cost  and have a lower cost of living  in romania

Perhaps if that is your view, you ought be selling expensive UK land; using the weakness of the Euro; and buying some land in the former eastern Bloc. I would say we were at some degree of advantage not having (in general in the grain regions) -20 degree winters; some of the best wheat growing conditions in the world; a lack of corruption; and not having to use some of the transport infrastructure of the wild east (unless it has markedly improved since I lived there).

I'd take a lower payment if it were centrally administered (not by the RPA); had no stupid supplimentary schemes to distort 2ac olive groves and a goat; couldnt be gold-plated / tweeked by national governments; and we were all subjected to the same welfare standards again without national meddling.

perhaps hungary is the place to buy, i gather the currency is very low

Try Transylvania, the best kept secret out this way!

TeslaCoils:

all subjected to the same welfare standards

That would be good to see but I dont think holding your breath would be a good idea

 Tesla, You have travelled, therefore you must know that people live off a 2 acre olive grove and a goat - well, a few goats. This is real-life permaculture, cropping under the trees, often two crops a year. Keep these people there with a wee bit of subsidy to buy "extras". It is a lot cheaper than providing them with a flat in town and benefits. The amount they receive is miniscule, but often enough to save a great deal of taxpayers' money - including yours, Britain being a net contributor to the EU budget.

i second that old mac.

with the announcement today that the new forth bridge is to be built with chinese and european steel , i cant help thinking that the money spent on unemployment in glasgow would have been better spent on keeping ravenscraig open , then we could have made the steel here.

stuart, is that where they farm vampires?

Glasshouse, problem is for vampire farming you need a supply of blood. As the people have all left to sell the Big Issue, we have nothing left to feed them on!

what is the script in transylvania?

Gasshouse, are you asking for something deep and meaningful or just to know that we use the Latin alphabet?

bit of info please on the land?

Firstly the Transylvania plateau is surround by the Carpathian Mountains on about 300 degrees. It can get cold in winter but it is a very still and dry region so it is a much more tollerable cold than the UKs wet and windy and cold!

The soils are generally deep brown to black and stone free - not quite your Russian black earths but related. The terrain with the best soils is flat to undulating. The weaker soils (they are more fragile in terms of being able to carry traffic - need better timing of work) are still deep, humus rich and dark. They were mainly formed under forests. There are some areas of old aluvial soils - my back garden could be 3-4 metres deep. They look great but the water and nutrients go through them too fast. I would prefer the earlier soils where there is a bit of clay to hold the moisture.

The major difference between the centre here and the south of Romania is that althought they have superb black soils, their rainfall (although nominally okay) is highly sporadic. Drought is a major problem. Temperatures and evapotranspiration is very high as it is well south plus there is a lot of wind. Short drought spells of only a few weeks can be a real problem. Net result is that aridity is a major problem and crop failure is rather too frequent. Yes there is water for irrigation but the costs of pumping to higher levels is expensive. My remarks about the quality of soils in the south of this country is, yes they are superb soils, not so good farmland though.

I prefer being in the middle because we have good soils and better rainfall.

is all this in 5 acre parcels and derelict?

Yes a lot of it is and in 0.5 acre parcels. Land consolidation is a massive issue.

One of the problems at the moment is that the CEE investment model is one of growing wheat and osr on large areas. It is the wrong one for here for several reasons. I am working on an alternative that is focused more on dairy/livestock and the creation of smaller units that required 10s of hectares and not 100s or 1000s. We are also working up some building designs to see if we can create lower-cost farm units - too much of what is proposed for here is too over-specified - not helped by a bureaucratic interpretation of 'EU-standards'. If we can come up with the building solutions we will then look at creating some sort of investment vehicle for here. The whole is going to take a lot more imagination than the 'Ukrainian' model.

i remember donating some old machinery to a guy who was taking it to romania about 10yrs ago. dont remember the name. it was for small farmers

i also sold a 6m mf30 drill to guy who was taking it to romania around the same time.

glasshouse, I keep hearing/reading people here saying that Romania has no vision for its agricultural industry. I decided to write one!

http://www.agri-focus.ro/the-industry/moving-ahead/february-3rd-2012/

What does it cost to get a tonne of wheat to a port from Romania? Here you can do it for less than £10/t from anywhere inland via 29t lorry load. Surely 10 days on a barge down the Danube would cost more/tonne?

When talking about different cost levels and therefore potential "fair" levels of CAP payments in former Eastern Bloc countries we aren't really comparing apples with apples or pears with pears. It would be fair to say that UK producers provide different public goods to their taxpayers than those in the East with very different business models. How do we do this evenly across so many different societies?

Brisel,

I do not have the Danube barge costs at hand but most of the major traders have based their silos on the Danube. I am not convinced that the investments are that wise - I think that they are buying into the old socialist-era belief that the southern plain is going to be a major commodity production area - I have my doubts because of the rainfall and the viability of rehabilitating much of the socialist-era irrigation. There are also soil degredation issues.

That then leaves the question of shipping costs for grains out of those areas where it rains. My view has always been that they will be too high because of the geography. Grains in those areas should be processed or fed locally. The livestock industry has not yet got on its feet so their is little local demand. Net result is that in the natural-rainfall areas the markets are limited and there is no real investment in storage. Overall too much 1985 thinking still in the system.

As to the overall EU payments situation, I came to the conclusion that one-size-fits-all is not the right approach and more needs to be managed at the national level. This I posted a month or so back. It appears that the House of Lords came to a similar conclusion.

Romania's needs are much different from the UK with respect to agriculture and as you say the delivery of public goods is also going to differ. I would, however, suggest that with some of the environmental measures we could consider an EU wide system with respect to environmental areas of global/international importance, just to ensure that the management of these are under the eyes of a wider audience. There are some real hot-spots left in Europe and these are not necessarily in countries where awareness is as high as it could be. The majority lower value areas should be nationally managed.

I lived in a town called Piatra Neamt, near Iasi. And lovely it was too. If I were looking to go overseas, and wanted to go a bitbeyond France, I would be heading to Africa or somewhere more wild like Armenia or perhaps Bulgaria. If looking overseas, I would stick to the proper formula of buying the best land even if you get a smaller bit. 

Okay, Tesla, just what are you going to grow in Armenia? Apricots I assume?

 I fancies pomegranites. Bit of a contrast to here though. Vines maybe, but I'd rather do that in Moldova.

Pie in the sky anyway as the wife wont have it.