Agriculture Minister Florin Barbu said that the grain market has become unbalanced since the start of the war in Ukraine and said that a kilogram of wheat was 1.8 lei and now it is 0.9 lei, News.ro reports. Florin Barbu was asked on Sunday on Antena 3 CNN how much Romanian agriculture has lost due to the war in Ukraine.

"We now know very well that when the war in Ukraine started, the world grain market was destabilized. One ton of wheat in the year of this war was somewhere around 1.8 lei per kilogram, which means 1,800 lei per ton, and after everything that happened on the world grain market, the price of grain today is somewhere around 0.9 lei.

I think cereal prices will still rise, and we will provide all the forms of support we have already published in the Official Gazette. Here we are talking about a grant of 100 euros for all crops from autumn 2022, 100 euros per hectare, in the livestock sector we are talking about 100 euros per head of animal and in the pig sector 100 euros per head. Direct payments to farmers in 2024 will be €3.3 billion. In addition to these direct payments, we will provide more grants for Romanian farmers," said Florin Barbu.

He was also asked whether the European Commission had in any way compensated these countries for the losses suffered. "Last year, the European Union granted 29.7 million euros. The Romanian government added another 30 million euros and we managed to make 50% of diesel consumption in 2023 3.63 lei per liter. In 2023, this meant more than 50% of the cost.

This year we have already submitted the normative act, we will take 25% of the excise tax that is used in agriculture, which means somewhere over 2 lei per liter of diesel fuel", explained the Minister of Agriculture.