AGRICULTURE’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE ECONOMIC RECOVERY – POSSIBILITIES OF REDUCING THE CURRENT INPUT CRISES

BERCA MIHAI¹, ROBESCU VALENTINA-OFELIA², HOROIAȘ ROXANA³
UASVM OF BUCHAREST^1,3, VALAHIA UNIVERSITY OF TARGOVISTE²
Cor­re­spond­ing author email: prof.mihai.berca@gmail.com
Abstract: This paper approach­es an extreme­ly cur­rent top­ic, name­ly the sub­sti­tu­tion of syn­thet­ic nitro­gen, very expen­sive and pol­lut­ing, with nitro­gen of bio­log­i­cal syn­the­sis, through the peas and Rhi­zo­bi­um sys­tem, cheap and non-pol­lut­ing. The entire econ­o­my is going through a peri­od of crises, gen­er­at­ed by peo­ple’s inep­ti­tude in man­ag­ing pre­cise­ly their most impor­tant prob­lems, name­ly those of food and social secu­ri­ty and safe­ty. Over time, there has been a cor­re­la­tion between the price of gas, which 80% goes into the nitro­gen pro­cess­ing, and that of fer­til­iz­ers. In 2022, the price of gas increased, on aver­age, 9 times, reach­ing 450 EUR/1000 m³, and the price of fer­til­iz­ers reached 1200 EUR/t. Between 2020 and 2022, the fuel price also dou­bled, and the val­ue of oth­er inputs was well above the mul­ti­pli­er of 2. By mid-2022, the price of wheat increased from 80–85 EUR/t, to 300–310 EUR/t, with very large fluc­tu­a­tions even from one day to anoth­er. How­ev­er, the high price of wheat can­not cov­er all the expens­es involved in the cul­ti­va­tion process, which puts mankind’s bread in dan­ger. The sit­u­a­tion is sim­i­lar for oth­er agri­cul­tur­al crops. It’s becom­ing clear that there is an urgent need to turn over research in order to find solu­tions for ame­lio­rate the state of deep cri­sis in which bread and oth­er food pro­duc­tion are, as well as pub­lic health, after two years of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic and dur­ing a war in the imme­di­ate vicin­i­ty of Roma­ni­a’s bor­ders.
Key­words: wheat, peas, inputs, cri­sis, price increase
JEL clas­si­fi­ca­tion: Q11, Q12, Q14, Q16, Q17