Romania farmers struggle as drought grips country

Romanian farmers are bearing the brunt of a severe drought that has hit the south-eastern regions of the country.

Theodor Ichim, who lost almost all his crops this year due to lack of rain and an irrigation system for his land, came up with an original way to bring attention to his plight and that of many other farmers.

Using his tractor and a tillage machine, he ploughed the words "we want water" into one of his dry fields, filming the process with a drone.

He got the idea for his unusual cry for help after seeing huge dust clouds rising from his land when ploughing one of his drier-than-usual fields.

Last fall's sowing period of wheat, barley and rapeseed yielded no crops at all this summer, while from the 2020 spring sowing of corn, sunflower and green peas, the only meagre returns were from the sunflowers and even that only yielded about 25 percent of the usual crop: a little over one ton per hectare instead of four.

The Dobrogea region, which includes the Danube River Delta, should have received about 400 litres of rainwater per square meter this year.

Since last September, however, rainfall has totalled just over 100 litres.

Farmers say the decreasing amount of rain is evident year by year.

According to a report by the county's emergency management directorate, crops on more than 85 percent of the Dobrogea region's farmland have been lost this year.

The effects of the drought could have been mitigated had the area's irrigation systems still been in working order.

The Dobrogea region benefited extensively from irrigation networks built during the communist era, even if, farmers say, they were not efficient.

Still, according to the farmers, they were better than nothing, which is the case now.

The huge infrastructure comprised of vast canals, underground tunnels and water stations with large-capacity electric pumps still belong to the state, but a lack of investment and proper administration led to their eventual destruction.

Installations were stolen, pumping stations and other buildings were left to crumble and the power lines were taken down and sold as scrap metal.

Farmers say it's the government's duty to rebuild the irrigation network, while their task is to take responsibility for the system's final elements -- like pipes and sprinklers.

Financially, farmers compare the investment needed in irrigation infrastructure to state expenditures on roads or bridges.

Just as, for example, drivers pay tolls to help recoup the costs of building and maintaining a highway, farmers would pay for their access to the irrigation system.

The droughts this year in parts of Romania and Poland have been the most severe in the last century, with the lack of rainfall also effecting crops in the Czech Republic and Germany.

While before the fall of its communist regime in 1989, Romania's irrigation network covered about 3.2 million hectares, its current total of irrigated fields is only between 100,000 and 600,000 hectares.