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