Policy issues of the implementation of sustainable landuse in Romania

Dr. Cosmin Hurjui

COST 634, 1st Joint Working Groups Meeting, Bratislava, Friday 8th October 2004

Research and Development Center for Soil Erosion Control Perieni - Barlad, Romania
www.cesperieni.ro

ROMANIA - RESOURCES
Total area: 23.75 million ha (58.7 million acres) Population: 23.5 million people Agricultural land: - 14.83 million ha - 0.65ha / person (agricultural)

- 0.41ha / person (arable land)

Evenly proportioned landscapes : - 36% Carpathian Mountains and Subcarpathians - 34% hills and tablelands - 30% plains

Total erosion on agricultural lands in Romania tons/ha/year (After M. Mooc)

UKRAINE

1-5
R Y
Baia Mare

20-30
Suceava

Total area: 23.75 million ha (58.7 million acres)

- 14.83 million ha of agricultural land - 6.37 million ha (43%) sloping land with erosion potential
E A IN

10-15 5 - 10

15-20
MO LD
Iasi

10-15
Oradea Cluj - Napoca Targu Mures

AV

20-30

IA

Arad

10-15 15-20
Deva Sibiu

0
Barlad

1-5
Timisoara

0
Brasov

30-45

5-10
Galati

UK

- 9.3 million ha used as arable land

Craiova

10-15

Bucuresti

1-5
BULGARIA

- Annual total erosion 126 million tons of which 106.6 million tons delivered by agricultural lands - The peak erosion rate (3045 tons/ha/year) in the curvature of Sub Carpathians - Then follows Moldavian Tableland, Southern Sub Carpathians, Getic and Transylvanian Tablelands

BLA C

15-20 Constanta 5-10

KS EA
A SE

Y U G

1-5

10-15
A V IA

20-30

10-15
Ploiesti

O S L

1-5
K AC BL

Land - use stratification in Romania

Land-use
Arable (Cropland) Pastures Vineyards Orchards

Surface millions ha
9.833 4.467 0.306 0.357

%
41.4 18.8 1.3 1.5

Agricultural total
Forestry vegetation Water and marsh Roads and railroads Yards, constructions Unproductive (Abandoned) Non agricultural total

14.963
6.568 0.796 0.375 0.655 0.393 8.787

63.0
27.7 3.3 1.6 2.8 1.6 37.0

General total

23.750

100.0

Since the 50s and until the end of the 80s, the so called Green Revolution was based on four factors of spectacular development: Generalization of intensive agriculture, with modern technical means and high productivity Maximum extension of irrigation Intensive use of chemicals in agriculture Genetics, occurrence of high potential hybrids All these four factors became limiting factors after 1989: Intensive agriculture triggered the acceleration of erosional processes Irrigation systems have been destroyed and no longer have water resources Application of chemicals is questionable by the increasing demand of ecological products In what concerns genetics, the great discoveries expected, just did not come up, like they used to, during the 50s and the 60s
Iliescu I. (2002)

Conservation measures on the agricultural fields in Romania: - Contour stripcropping, buffer stripcropping, agroterracing on cropland, bench terraces on higher slopes, wine and fruit plantation terraces, gully control structures, perennial grasses in the crop rotation system, grassed waterways, winding (serpentine) or contour technological earthen roads. The Perieni Research Station concept of sustainable use of sloping land was extended on a large scale during the 80s the completion of 35 demonstrative erosion control perimeters with a total area of 62,400 ha located on most of the Romanian counties Concomitantly, the same approach has been adopted on large areas, so that at the end of 1989, 2.2 million ha of agricultural land have undergone conservation works and practices.
Total area under conservation practices: 2035 ha

DEMONSTRATIVE EROSION CONTROL PERIMETERS IN ROMANIA

Law 18 / 1991 - reallotment of the original landowners

Art. 13 The effective assignment of terrains within the hilly areas should be done as a rule on the original (old) locations
Consequences: 48 million individual plots on an area of 9 million ha (60% of the total agricultural land) 4.2 million agricultural units (exploitations, farms) - average of 2.2 ha each - containing 5-16 small parcels sometimes sparsely distributed 71% have 3-5 ha/family 11% have more than 5 ha/family - 45% properties smaller than 1 ha - 24% between 1-2 ha - 31% are bigger than 2 ha (Gavrilescu & Giurca, 2000)

reallotment should be done to successors right up to the fourth degree

Consequences: increased fragmentation rate of terrains 47% of the new landowners living in the cities, who never had any connection with agriculture
When application of Law 18 / 1991 will be completed, the State domains will contain between 600,000 and 700,000 ha (1/3 of the land in the former State Agricultural Enterprises)

Government Emergency Ordinance (GEO) nr. 108/2001

Law 166/2002 of agricultural units (exploitations, farms)

Technical Norms (standards) from May15, 2002

establishes the minimal dimensions of agricultural units encourages landowners to merge their properties Vegetal sector a. cereals, technical and medicinal plants: - plains area......110 ha - hilly areas..50 ha b. natural cultivated pastures and forage crops in the mountain area....25 ha c. vegetables.2 ha d. fruit-growing plantations......5 ha e. strawberry plantations and fruit-growing shrubs..1 ha f. noble vineyards and hop plantations 5 ha g. green houses....0.5 ha h. mushrooms.. 0.2 ha Animal sector a. cows.....15 heads b. bulls breeding....50 c. sheep or goats.300 d. racing horses.....15 e. horse breeding...50 f. pigs.....100 g. other animal species..100 h. poultry.2,000 I. meat poultry...5,000 j. incubators..200,000 k. other species of birds.1,000 l. bees keeping...50 families m. ostriches.15 n. rabbits.500 o. fur animals.100

The Law 166/2002 also includes references to other legal documents which regulate in detail each of the agricultural sectors involved, or give subsidies to certain producers, such as: Law 72/2002 animal breeding production,Law 244/2002 - vineyards and wine, Law 348/2003 - fruit-growing plantations (orchards),Law 312/2003 - production and valuation of field vegetables, Law 469/2003 vegetables, flowers and green houses, Law 150/2003 agricultural credit, GD (Government decision) 74/2003 - subsidies for agricultural producers, GUO 72/2003 a special bonus for producers cultivating up to 5 ha, GD 1593/2003 subsidies for animal production, GD 1594/2003 - subsidies for vegetables production, GO 174/2004 recognition of groups of horticultural producers.

Discussion during the national debate The rational use and Romanian soils preservation at the Romanian Academy, 2002
1) The official way, Law 166/2002- constraining or encouraging the small property land owners to merge their land properties, following the former German Democratic Republic example after reunification, with agricultural units (farms) of 60-80 ha in average and, hopefully, greater than 200 or 1000 ha (Iliescu I., 2002). 2) Agriculture is not only a branch of production but, in the same time, it is a way of life. The European overall tendency of medium size familial type units must be taken into account, to achieve the goal of having 200-500 ha merged exploitations in the hilly (tableland) areas and over 1000 ha on plains (Davidescu D., 2002). 3) Paun Ion Otiman: - the official way is anachronistic, unrealistic and bringer of negative consequences to the rural Romanian life: - out-dated because within the EU subsidies are not given according to the exploitation area - unrealistic because the coalescence of agricultural small plots is not supposed to be realized by free market mechanisms, but by forcing the landowners to get associated - the multi-family heterogenous association of landowners would not influence for good the state of prosperity of individual landowners - the performant private-family type of exploitation having dimensions similar to those in the EU (under 20 ha with a maximum of 60-70 ha) Perieni Research Station tip: ALL MENTIONED TRENDS ARE GOOD AS LOG AS THEY ARE MEANT TO CREATE THE BACKGROUND FOR APPLICATION OF CONSERVATION CONCEPTS

Degradation processes of national interest and their hierarchy depending on extent and damage done
Erosion, torrents and landslides Prolonged and repeated droughts which result in reduction of vegetative cover Decrease of humus content and destruction of soil structure Degradation of inner biological activity in soils Unattended disposal of industrial waste materials Soil pollution by heavy metals Petrol pollution in the neighborhood of extraction areas Degradation by surface (open-air) mining The decrease of pH by acid rains and inadequate use of chemical fertilizers Secondary salinization by inadequate use of irrigation

Motoc M. (2002)

Rational treatment and use of land subject to erosion

Section Territorial units and treatment objects Zone

Section Types of processes

Section Social economical requirements and restrictions

Hillside processes Streambed processes Sedimentation and pollution processes of reservoirs Process of soil fertility modification

Region

Small watershed

Production unit

- Hydrological elementary unit of treatment and operation - Treatment objects

Decisions and optimizings Single events Long-term

- Maximum physical production - Minimum cost price - Reclaiming of unproductive fields - Minimum consumption of materials - Peak work productivity - Protection of social economical objectives - Demographic impact - Environment protection

Motoc M., et al. (1992)

National Priorities of Conservation and Melioration of Soil in Romania

Forestation of soils degraded by erosion and pollution by heavy metals within vulnerable areas Amelioration of natural pastures Revaluation of abandoned land Rehabilitation of reclamation works on gullies and torrents Conservation land management within the new agricultural units (farms) resulted from privatization of associations and state agricultural enterprises The increase (improvement) of organic matter content in soils by means of ameliorative vegetation or organic fertilizers Conservation systems of tillages (minimum or no-tillage which in Romania are only applied on experimental fields Establishment of soil protection associations Elaboration of drafts (handbooks) for the average people
Motoc M. (2002)

Coalescence (land consolidation, remembrement, kommassierung, flurbereinigung) of small land properties for sustainable land use

A view of Gheltag II watershed in 1991

Gheltag watershed before 1989 and now

Bird-eye view of Gheltag I watershed

Thank You!