Farmers in Romania forced to sell livestock as drought kills animal feed

Temperatures in Romania hit over 40C in August, with the country experiencing several heat waves this summer.

Transcript

00:00Faced with an ongoing drought, farmers in Romania are struggling to hang on to their

00:07cattle.

00:08They say feed is increasingly difficult to find and very expensive, forcing them to cut

00:12their losses and sell their animals to the slaughterhouses.

00:17Farmer Traian Ghertan says it costs him 1,000 euros a month to feed his livestock.

00:22The price of the animals compared to a year ago is 30-40% lower.

00:34On a 4,500 kg cow, 4,500 lei is not enough for a slaughterhouse.

00:42Last year it was 8,000-9,000 lei.

00:47Representatives of livestock breeders say farmers in all the counties impacted by the

00:52drought are facing the same situation.

00:56They say those who are using winter fodder to feed their animals now will have no choice

01:01but to slaughter them later this year.

01:04The impact, they say, will be felt for years to come.

01:08And small-scale farmers say the effects will be felt down the line by consumers as farms

01:14will be forced to compensate by increasing their prices.

01:24The Romanian Meat Cattle Breeders Association has sounded a warning, saying the number of

01:29cows has already dropped drastically from around 7 million to just over a million animals.

01:35Of those remaining, about one-third of them, 300,000, are dairy cows.

01:41But they say that once a farm is closed, it is extremely difficult for a farmer to

01:45get back into the business.

01:47They say they are expecting pressure on slaughterhouses to increase in the autumn.

01:51This is when many farmers, who had received government subsidies to buy their animals,

01:55will legally be allowed to sell them.

01:59With temperatures hitting over 40 degrees Celsius in August, experts warn this year's

02:04drought will result in well over 1.5 billion euros in losses in the agriculture sector.

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