Global Warming in Moldova

Last week it was unusually and disturbingly (at least for myself) warm in Moldova. On Wednesday, the outside temperature reached 14 degrees Celsius, thus making this January the warmest winter month since the first instrumental weather records in the country.

I don’t see common Moldovan people being concerned by this phenomenon. At most they are just amazed, and sometimes pleasantly surprised by generous warmth and sunshine. Farmers are worried because this unusually warm weather might mess up their crops, and consequently, their families’ incomes (for those interested in the potential impact of this weather conditions on Moldovan agriculture, here is an opinion). Government is passive because it is widely-accepted that one “cannot change the weather.” Some scientists are probably amazed in their own, scientifically tacit way.

I do not hear anybody talking about global warming, and this unusually warm January temperature for Moldova being a real manifestation of it.

A Formula for Good Agriculture

This past week, our group learned about agricultural policies and practices in Japan. Five decades ago, the Japanese government decided to make its northern region, Hokkaido, its main food supplier, and since then it has invested heavily in agriculture land improvement through large scale drainage, irrigation and fertility-enhancing projects. Since two thirds of Hokkaido’s 1.2 million hectares of cultivated land originally had a low level of productivity, the current high yield farmland has not come cheaply.

The national agricultural policies are being implemented at the regional and local levels via a network of Land Improvement Districts (LIDs) that manage quite sophisticated agricultural engineering and land conversion projects. Individual farmers who are land-owners are actively involved in LID associations, which ensures the participatory aspect of decision-making in agricultural policies. In fact, the staff of LIDs are ex-farmers. The projects are financed in the following way: 50-66 % - from central government, 17-30% from prefectures, 6-14 % from local government, and individual farmers contribute the remaining 5-15%.

Another component of Japanese agriculture are agricultural cooperatives, managed by agriculture professionals whose major objectives are to support farmers in all possible ways, foster cooperation and consensus among farmers, and promote governmental policies in agriculture. There are about 840 cooperatives in Japan, and around 120 in Hokkaido. Farmers make up the membership of these cooperatives, pay membership fees, participate in the decision-making process, and benefit from a wide range of services such as equipment rental, loans, whole-sale and retail networks, training, consulting, etc. In addition, these cooperatives are active political lobby groups.

In conclusion, the Japanese agricultural model follows a pretty straightforward formula:

Good agriculture = a clear governmental policy based on pre-defined national priorities + adequate financing + a strong and efficient institutional and administrative framework + well-organized, properly supported and politically-represented farmers.

This could be a perfectly applicable formula for agriculture development in Moldova, particularly because in the Soviet times, the first three components had been in use as well. Moreover, it is worth mentioning that Japan also faced the challenge of fragmented land (due to privatization). However, the agricultural cooperatives and LIDs are the solution to that problem, and a means to sustaining competitiveness of Japanese agricultural products.