The farmers are dissatisfied because they do not have access to loans and because the fuel prices remained unchanged after the petroleum grew cheaper. In a meeting on March 13, Prime Minister Chiril Gaburici promised them that he will intervene, IPN reports.

Chiril Gaburici told the journalists that together with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Economy, they will look for solutions to farmers’ problems. The Premier said yet that the Moldovan products do not fully meet the European standards and called on the farmers to invest in their quality so that these become competitive.

Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Ion Sula said that within a month the farmers will have access to a number of loans, including that of €100 million provided by Poland. As to farmers’ requests to increase the subsidization fund and to subsidize the excises on the purchased fuel, the official said they will examine the issues to see what can be done.

Alexandru Slusari, chairman of the Union of Agricultural Producers Associations UniAgroProtect, said he has the feeling that the authorities have no solution to the problems reported by the farmers. “Of the five questions we put, we received a plausible answer only to one of them – that the VAT in agriculture will remain at the level of 8%. Minister of Finance Anatol Arapu informed us that the subsidization fund will be 610 million lei, but we cannot accept such a figure,” he stated.

The leader of UniAgroProtect noted no clear answer was provided as regards the oil products. “The farmers now purchase diesel fuel for 15.30 lei a liter. When the barrel of petroleum cost more, the price was the same. Regretfully, some of the questions remained unanswered,” said Alexandru Slusari.

A number of farmers associations are to hold a meeting next week to decide what steps to take to overcome the difficult situation.