The importance of agriculture in Romania was again underlined by the the EU's 2012 guide to agriculture, fisheries and forestry across the Union. Romania has the EU's second largest agricultural workforce – more than 1.6 million Annual Work Units (AWU). The AWU figure represents one person working full time all year and is used to give a standard means of comparison. Total numbers of people can confuse the result with part time and seasonal work.

The 1.6 million AWU is an astonishing one sixth of the 9.7 million AWU EU total and is second only to Poland (1.9 million AWU). Romania also has by far the most individual farms in the EU, nearly 3.9 million holdings, almost a third of the total number of farms in the EU 27 and more than double the number of any other EU country.

The statistics paint a picture of small scale traditional farming practices in Romania. There are huge numbers of farms in a relatively small area – some 13.3 million hectares. This figure is less than half the utilized agricultural area in France, for example. A greater percentage of farm work is carried out by family members than the EU average. The farm family labor force accounts for 88.7 percent of the total in Romania, compared to the 77.5 percent EU average. Organic farming ostensibly accounts for a very small percentage of the total, some 0.2 percent in Romania. However, it is widely considered that much of the farming in Romania is in practice organic, but is not officially recognized as such.

Liam Lever, liam@romania-insider.com