• With an average wheat production of 4.836 kilograms per hectare, Romania set a historic production in 2017, almost a ton higher than last year, says the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Petre Daea.
The harvest of 2017 was the largest recorded so far in Romania, declares the president of the Romanian Board of Milling and Baking Industry (ROMPAN), Aurel Popescu. For wheat, rye and triticale, the harvest was about 10,2 million tons, about 1,7 million tons more than in 2016.
"From a qualitative point of view, wheat is good for baking. Due to the rains that fell before the harvest (when the wheat was already ripe) two important parameters - hectoliter weight and protein - registered serious decreases. The milling sector suffers in particular due to the low hectoliter weight, in the sense of the decrease in the yield of flour obtained after milling. Another sector that will have problems because of these two low indicators is that of wheat export.
For this reason, two prices were formed in the market, during harvesting and after, thus we have wheat with low hectoliter weight and protein below 12% with a lower price, between 580-650 lei/t and wheat for export, with a price over 700 lei/t. As the prices are somewhat at the level of last year, I do not think that we will register substantial changes in the prices of milling-bakery products, flour, bread, etc.
Unfortunately, on the entire cereal chain, the most affected are the processors, who could not and cannot increase the selling prices, especially because of the illegal work that has increased a lot recently.
Although there have been substantial increases in labor, fuel and energy costs, the price of flour and bread have not registered the same level of growth and, currently, most mill-bakery operators are operating at a loss.
Because we have this surplus of wheat and to export as little raw material as possible, Rompan made interventions to promote the export of flour. We are waiting for the reaction of the authorities and we will take care of identifying the market", declared Aurel Popescu.
