The non-adoption of the bill to penalize land owners that let their land lie fallow is one of the unattained aims mentioned by Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Vasile Bumacov when presenting a report at the end of his tenure. “There are many lazy people in the country, but the ‘weeds law’ gathers dust in Parliament. We yet managed to reduce the uncultivated areas from 260,000 to 145,000 hectares and will continue to work in this respect,” the official stated in a news conference, quoted by IPN.
Vasile Bumacov also said that during his tenure he wanted to build an agrifood center in Chisinau, which would have replaced the markets, but he didn’t manage to. “We drafted the project, had negotiations with foreign partners, held the contest of proposals for investors, but could not deal with the lobby of these semi-wild markets, including because some of the politicians follow the saying ‘a bird in the hands is worth two in the bushes’,” said the minister, adding that even if the contest of bids for the agrifood center closed at the start of October, the investors asked for a pause until December as they want to see the results of the parliamentary elections.
The minister regrets that he didn’t manage to reform the system of studies in agriculture, saying neither society, nor the researches in this field are ready for such a reform. But without appropriate preparations, such a reform is doomed to failure.
As regards the future recommendations, Vasile Bumacov noted that the integration into the EU is vital for Moldovan agriculture because European integration means access to finances, transfer of technologies and access to a large and safe market.
After the November 30 legislative elections, the new Parliament that will be elected will form a new Cabinet.
