Romania

Romanian authorities have a history of giving up fertile agricultural land to foreign companies or Romanian “fat-cats”, all to the detriment of small scale, diverse, economically sustainable and environmentally sound agriculture.

Le gouvernement de centre gauche prévoit soit d'imposer un plafond pour la superficie qu'un étranger sera autorisé à acheter, soit d'exiger que l'acheteur ait une expérience dans ce domaine, a indiqué M. Constantin

Since Jane Mendillo took over the endowment in July 2008, Harvard’s holdings of forests, farms and other natural resources in Brazil as well as in New Zealand and Romania have grown to about 10 percent of the portfolio -- more than $3 billion -- and she wants to add more.

For years, Romania has been a playground for foreign investors. Drawn by the vast amounts of available land, along with prices lower than in the rest of Europe, more than 700 000 hectares of land are now owned by foreign investors.

The extension of the interdiction to sell agricultural land to foreigners after 2014 is a request that cannot be granted, says the Minister of European Affairs, Leonard Orban.

Jeffrey Notaro, a trader who worked on Wall Street for 18 years, set up investment fund Black Sea Agriculture seven years ago, mainly for investments in farmland in northern Bulgaria and south Romania.

Attracted by the low cost of agricultural land, Farmers from elsewhere in the EU are taking the plunge to set up in Romania.

Attirés par le bas prix des terrains agricoles, de nombreux Européens n’hésitent plus à monter une exploitation en Roumanie. Ils contribuent ainsi à réinventer la culture locale, en particulier par le bio.

Romanian government considers setting up a land bank with priority in the acquisition of agricultural land to restrict the flow of foreign investments.

The countries say that they now believe their farmers are not yet ready to compete on a free land market with foreign investors

De plus en plus d’agriculteurs suisses s’installent en Roumanie, à la frontière est de l’Europe. Attirés par des prix encore dérisoires, ils achètent des domaines de plusieurs centaines d'hectares et exportent en Suisse et en Allemagne.

The six case studies compiled in this report illustrate the wide range of approaches and focus that private funds are adopting (legal structure, geography, agricultural production and operating strategies) to invest in farmland in different parts of the world.