BUCHAREST, 12 sept — Sputnik. According to a study conducted by the European Parliament in 2015, most foreign investors are in Timis county, where one third of the Romanian agricultural land is worked by Italian companies, as reported by Ziarul Financiar.
Thus, foreigners hold 5.3 million hectares of farmland in Romania, from an area of 13.3 million hectares representing the total surface of agricultural land in Romania, according to the data published on the Ministry of Agriculture's website.
The study „Extent of farmland grabbing in the EU" shows that „up to 10% of agricultural land is now in the hands of investors from outside the EU, with a further 20-30% controlled by investors from the EU. For example, in the county Timis, it is estimated that approximately 150,000 ha of agricultural land — almost a third of the agricultural area in the county — is cultivated by Italian-owned companies."
Foreign investors are interested in taking over agricultural land from Eastern Europe, especially from Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland, according to the cited source. Farmland grabbing accelerate the migration of the rural population, as performance farming does not require much workforce.
