Transylvania: Welcome to the Future

(Page 3 of 5)

As we walked through a haze of windblown white blossoms from the pear trees that line both sides of Viscri's broad main road, Fernolend explained how the legacy of Communist-era collective farms -- she served as economist/accountant for the local collective -- continues to have its effects. The farmers once again resent having their lives ruled by government regulations, and they remain suspicious of any effort that bears a resemblance to collectivized farming.

"Now we can think and say and do what we believe in, but Communism destroyed our trust in ourselves," she said. "When a Swiss guy offered to create a milk collective, people said, 'If my cow is better, why should I get the same price for my milk as everyone else?' But unless we cooperate, the E.U. regulations will destroy us.

"We are," she allowed, "between states of mind."

No one expressed those dual states of mind better than Rolf Roth, whom I visited in the village of Malancrav.

Roth is a huge man with intense brown eyes, a fullback's neck, and large, thick hands. His frame, even in his stocking feet, nearly filled the doorway to his house. In the barn abutting the house, pigs and piglets snorted and squealed in the mud and compost of their pen, pushing their snouts through the wire enclosure. Roth's wife, Dana, had just brought out some white cheese, airy as meringue, that she'd made at home with milk from the family's herd of 20 cows -- a large herd, by village standards, that enabled the Roths to sell cheese and milk as well as provide for themselves.

The E.U. regulations will soon make his life more difficult, Roth complained. And all of this is happening, he said, at a time when Romania needs to fund and promote its own dairy producers. "Romania does not produce enough milk to cover the necessities of Romania," he told me. "In Romania, in this land with all its milk, in this village children go without milk. Families can't afford to buy it."

While milk imported from other countries in the European Union might bring down the price, without government support, small-scale local farmers such as Roth will not survive. "And will we be able to compete with the cheeses brought in from abroad?" he asked.

But what, I asked him, about continuing to produce the way he always has, marketing his products locally and promoting them, as the Eminescu Trust and other nongovernmental organizations are trying to do, as traditional and organic agricultural products?

"Traditional agriculture? I don't know what that means," Roth said. "[These groups] will provide assistance for farmers who use traditional methods? But that itself becomes extra time and work, and we won't be able to compete on the market."

He pointed out that the regulations would still demand that his wife's cheeses meet new pasteurization and sanitary standards, which would mean purchasing licenses and equipment, and that all products be refrigerated when stored or transported. All expenses in time and money that he can't afford. "We're not ready for this," he told me. "For tourists it's nice to ride through green valleys. It's nostalgic. But not for locals who have a pig and a cow and have to survive on what they can produce on half a hectare [a little over an acre] per family."

In a written response to an e-mail inquiry, Michael Mann, E.U. spokesman for agriculture and rural development, acknowledged the problem. "Concerns as to the ability of small farms to meet genuine E.U. requirements are not without foundation."

Mann's view is very similar to the World Bank's: there are simply too many small farms for them all to survive. Small farmers "need to develop alternative part-time or even full-time non-farm activities in the area where they live."

To help them through the transition, the E.U. has increased funding to its rural development programs for its newest members. Romania alone will receive more than eight billion euros ($11.7 billion) over the next six years. All of these programs, however, depend upon the national government for implementation. And the Romanian government has had its own difficulties reaching those farmers in need. Raluca Barbu, who oversees the World Wildlife Fund's rural development and conservation efforts in Romania and Bulgaria, told me that only some 50 agricultural advisory offices have been set up to help the more than 1.5 million small farmers in these two countries. Most of the offices, she said, are located in major cities, too far for many of the farmers to travel to.

Mann hopes for the development of "non-farm activities," but that is not what has happened. Many young people simply leave the farms for work in the cities, in Romania and elsewhere in the E.U. Since 1990 the population of Romania has declined by 1.5 million, or 6.5 percent, the combined result of this exodus and a low birth rate. By 2050, the population is expected to decline another 16 percent.

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