Romanian cucumber planters’ significant losses

The losses that cucumber growers have registered are higher than 100,000 euro a day due to the decision made by the Czech Republic and Germany of not importing anymore vegetables as representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture assert but they also assure that vegetables in Romania do not run the risk of being contaminated.

For the time being, farmers who plant cucumbers outdoors or in greenhouses are not affected because they go on trading it as Adrian Rădulescu, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Agriculture asserted for Radio România.

‘Both the Polish market and the export into the Republic of Moldova go on running. There are no troubles. We are an EU member state. The Ministry isn’t making anything else but Romanian agricultural policy. The decisions are made only by the European Commission’, Adrian Rădulescu said.

‘Taking into account the present situation, it is very hard to find other markets where to sell greenhouse cucumbers’, Adrian Rădulescu added.

People expect the European Commission to give them some answers regarding the aforementioned issues.

According to the World Health Organization, the E. coli bacterium which caused the death of eighteen people in Europe and made hundred people to get ill it is a new strong stem.

The stem is very different as is antibiotics resistant so the medication that many patients are prescribed prove to be inefficient.

The pest generated trade tensions in Europe as Spain, for instance, is now demanding compensation after its file was removed from the case in which Germany claimed that the bacteria had been brought from Spain by means of some cucumbers.

Both Germany and Spain’s economy has been affected

‘There were many cases of E. coli contamination registered in the Northern Germany’, asserted Ovidiu Suciu, correspondent of Radio România.

Usually, the disease has a very strong impact mostly on children under five years old but now, it has affected about 87 percent of adults.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in Stockholm considers that it is the most serious pest ever seen in the history of Germany.

‘The E. coli bacterium has a very strong impact on Spain economy too’, informed Ana Maria Damian, correspondent of Radio România.

Spanish farmers complain about that nobody wants to buy their vegetables anymore as the European Commission has initially hinted that the contamination source could be the cucumbers planted in Spain.

Translated by: Cristina Anamaria Maricescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University