Romania will make it into world's top ten ranking of maize producers this year as a result of the doubling of its maize yield to 9 million tonnes, after the United States, China and Brazil, but ahead of countries such as Ukraine, Spain and the Russian Federation. This year's crop is worth about 1.3 billion euros, at a price of some 142 euros per tonne (600 RON/tonne) as offered on the market at the moment.
Romania, which is positioned at the middle of the world ranking by GDP per capita, with its 6,000 euros, has very few sectors where it is a top ten player. Other such fields include beer drinking per capita. Romania ranks fifth in terms of Internet speeds, according to certain surveys, and is also one of the top five countries in terms of number of spam messages sent.
Farmers have harvested only half of the maize crop, Agriculture Ministry says, but the results are almost double compared with last year, with an average of 4 tonnes/hectare and a peak of 10 tonnes/hectare, despite the bad weather lately.
"In those areas not affected by disasters, we got 10 tonnes per hectare. Unfortunately this only happened on 800 hectares. On other hectares affected by water, which reached a 40-80-centimetre level, crops were completely destroyed and we had to plant rape. The advantage was that the prices are very good, with the maize trading for 200 euros/tonne in Paris," Culiţă Tărâţă, chairman of TCE 3 Brazi, the farm operating the biggest area of farming land in Romania, about 60,000 hectares, told ZF.
Romania will make it into world's top ten ranking of maize producers this year as a result of the doubling of its maize yield to 9 million tonnes, after the United States, China and Brazil, but ahead of countries such as Ukraine, Spain and the Russian Federation. This year's crop is worth about 1.3 billion euros, at a price of some 142 euros per t
