• The law providing for the centralization of stocks of agricultural and food products was adopted on Wednesday, 08.02.2023, by the Chamber of Deputies as a decision-making body.
The Chamber of Deputies adopted, on Wednesday, 08.02.2023, a draft law that establishes the method of reporting stocks of agricultural and food products by agricultural producers, warehouses, processors at national level and traders, in the context of a conflict situation, crisis or emergency. This data will be centralized at the level Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
"The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is responsible for the application of measures to centralize stocks of agricultural and food products, respecting the confidentiality of data concerning these products. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is developing an IT system for collecting statistical data reported by economic operators in the agri-food sector. In order to ensure the traceability of agricultural and food products on the market, economic operators in the agri-food sector have the obligation to provide statistical data for the record of stocks of agricultural and food products, once a month, until the 15th of the month for the previous month, to Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development."
Mandatory reporting
Economic operators in the agro-food sector will be obliged to report the stocks of vegetables-fruits, cereals and cereal-based products, oilseeds and oilseed-based products, fodder legumes, certified seeds: cereals, rice, oilseeds and proteinseeds, meat and meat products, canned and mixed meats, milk and milk products, milling and bakery products, processed, processed, preserved products from vegetables and fruits, fats and oils, water, including natural mineral water, spring water and all others bottled or packaged waters, rice, herbs, salt and spices, teas, sugar, honey, yeast.
The text of the normative act emphasizes the obligation to declare these stocks by economic operators in the agri-food sector: "The regulatory measures established by this law concern the fields of activity of agricultural production, storage, processing and marketing of agricultural and food products and are mandatory for all economic operators in the agri-food sector."
Failure to comply with the provisions of the law constitutes a misdemeanor and is sanctioned with a fine from 5.000 lei to 20.000 lei.
Exceptions to these provisions will be merchants who have sales structures with a sales area of up to 400 square meters inclusive, without the spaces intended for the storage and production of goods, itinerant merchants, merchants who carry out public food service activities, as well as those that carry out sales activities in public areas.
Not all politicians consider this law salutary
The Vice-President of the Defense Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, Bogdan Rodeanu (USR), draws attention to the fact that this law can be a vulnerability of the Romanian state, according to Mediafax.
It states: "USR voted against this project. I draw attention to the fact that this project may constitute a vulnerability in terms of the entire context of national security and safety."
He also states: "What would happen if, through the direct management of some clever, politically employed boys in the Ministry of Agriculture, this data was used? Could someone make a lot of money from this import-export context? Could the price of cereals, wheat, corn, oil, sunflower be manipulated? Could the price of bread be manipulated? These are natural questions that we ask ourselves at the moment. This project may constitute one of the vulnerabilities."
Article written by Gabriela Dan, Editor of Arta Albă
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