Romania cereal production in 2020,17 million tonnes, lower by 44% from 2019

The total production of Romanian grain cereal dropped this year to almost half from 2019, due to the prolonged drought which affected some agricultural areas in the country, reaching a bit over 17 million tonnes, according to the data supplied by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MADR), at the request of AGERPRES. If last year the harvest of grain cereal obtained from 5.56 million hectares surpassed 30,41 million tonnes, this year the grains were "gathered" from a slightly smaller radius as opposed to 2019, namely from approximately 5.34 million hectares. In this year, Romania was not able to reach the performance of the past two years in order to be at the top of the European Union for corn production, because of the prolonged drought which destroyed almost half of the yield, despite the fact that the record corn harvest obtained last year, of over 18,66 million tonnes, was reviewed at the request of the European Commission, who said that Romania sent a larger production than what it harvested. According to MADR data, the corn grain harvest registered a recoil of 45% in 2020, reaching 9,63 million tonnes, as opposed to 17,43 million tonnes in 2019. The harvested surface was of 2.61 million hectares, with 63,000 hectares beneath that of 2019. Furthermore, the production of wheat in Romania registered a deficit of almost 41% from 2019, reaching 6,091 million tonnes, from a surface of 2,088 million hectares. On the other hand, the only harvest which registered a growth in production this year was rye, the harvest being 26% larger than the previous year, namely 33,048 tonnes, a opposed to 26.182 tons last year, but also on a slightly bigger surface area, by 912 hectares, with a total of 10,267 hectares. The representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture specify that the final data regarding vegetable production done during the agricultural year of 2019-2020 will be published by the National Institute of Statistics in 2021, at the end of May.AGERPRES(RO - author: Mariana Nica, editor: Andreea Marinescu; EN - author: Catalin Cristian Trandafir, editor: Maria Voican)