Stefan Poienaru, a major owner of agricultural land in southern Romania, has managed to create an integrated business, and is counting on his area of business to turn truly profitable in the coming years.

His latest investment centres on biofuel production, with the first step made this autumn, when he signed an agreement for one thousand hectares to cultivate biomass. " (...) Profitability stands at 1,000 euros per hectare, a sum no other crop can generate. The first 20,000 tonnes of biomass will be put to use next year, but we've already signed a partnership with several Greek investors," Stefan Poienaru, manager of Fetesti-based Agrofam Holding, which includes energy supply in its future projects, told ZF.

The Fetesti-based company, set up 17 years ago, forecasts 25m-euro turnover for this year, up around 25% from 2007, when turnover hit 20m euros, according to Poienaru.

In the agricultural sector, Poienaru is among the top five players, with operations accounting for over half of the entire group's turnover. He has 12,000 hectares of land leased for farming in the counties of Ialomita and Calarasi - cultivating 7,000 hectares of wheat, between 4,000 and 5,000 hectares of rapeseed and 1,500 hectares of barley each autumn and 2,000 hectares of sunflower and 500 hectares of maize each spring.

Poienaru decided to sell just half of grain production in 2008, which stood at almost 65,000 tonnes. The rest of products are kept in the silos built in recent years, whilst Poienaru waits for prices to go up.

Agrofam has a warehousing capacity of almost 100,000 tonnes and five collection centres in Calarasi, Braila and Ialomita. Poienaru believes agriculture will be the only field where we will be able to be competitive in the future.

For four years, Agrofam has also owned a wine cellar and 60 hectares of vineyard. In 2005, the company bought