Restart Romania'S Agriculture €“ A Part Of The Country'S Survival Strategy In Times Of Crisis

Agriculture is an important subject when it comes to the survival of a nation. We all saw how a pandemic crisis, out of nowhere, can easily disrupt and affect not just the food industry as a whole, but entire the mentality of people all around the Globe. The lack of response in the food industry towards supply chains combined with fear for lack of resources created a mass panic that people might not have access to enough goods to feed their families. Therefore, we conducted a study between 4th of March and 1st of June 2020 and took in consideration reports from National Institute of Statistics, various Governmental and agricultural research papers published in this timeframe, along with an online questionnaire addressed to farmers. The implied research methodology in achieving the expressed objectives of the study consisted in a quantitative research through a survey supported via an online questionnaire. The analysis of the data collected through the questionnaire was done using techniques such as frequency of answers to questions addressed to participants in the study. We have noticed that farmers are producing important quantities of goods, but they cannot sell them in markets or supermarkets. In other words, there are loads of products to satisfy consumption needs of the population, but those products don’t leave gardens or greenhouses. This is the main reason why we intend to extend the study in the near future to verify if this situation is being generated by lack of interest from the Government or from small or medium farmers. Nevertheless, we are aware of the limitations of our study. Thus, we consider that its addressability is rather restricted. The group of respondents included both young and mature farmers, some of them with a low level of digital skills. On the other hand, the respondents had not been previously selected so that there is the risk that expressed points of view would be based not just on experience, but also on intuition.