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Agriculture Minister Adrian Oros said in Buzau on Friday that a project to finance investment in the Buzau Gene Bank was submitted under Romania's National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR).
"We have included in this year's budget funding the startup of this project of the gene bank in Buzau; we have allocated 3 million lei as a starter, so that researcher Costel Vanatoru can set up a team this year of 12 researchers with whom to lay the ground for a strategy and vision for the development of such a gene bank. At the same time, we have submitted a project under the National Recovery and Resilience plan, together with him, worth 30 million euros, which we are starting with the Ministry of Research, so that beyond what they will do this year with the strategy, they will materialise as investment as well. Our hope is that the investment, and we mean a hefty amount, will come from PNRR," said Oros.
Researcher Costel Vanatoru, appointed to deal with the Buzau Gene Bank, said this strategic objective urgently needs investment and its accreditation must be obtained, agerpres.ro confirms.
"A feasibility study follows, the construction of the bank with specific laboratories will follow, and the bank will be accredited, because you should know that Romania does not currently have an accredited gene bank (...). Therefore, we need a gene bank that has to be accredited and operate in accordance with the rules and standards in force. Of course we need resources for that, and we believe that the project we submitted for PNRR will be accepted as submitted and we will be able to receive this European money for this facility," said Vanatoru.
Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies and national chairman of the National Liberal Party (PNL) Ludovic Orban also stressed the importance of the Buzau Gene Bank.
"We have come to import seeds, although Romania was a country that had advanced research on seeds, especially in the vegetable growing area. You can see, we reckon we are spending over 2 billion euros on seeds, but we have the capacity to develop in this field. Our goal is to encourage everything that can be done in Romania to be done in Romania. And we do not have to do anything in Romania in terms of seeds; first of all we have to preserve what we have in a gene bank, and later to develop a capitalisation system, so as to allow the Romanian producers to be able to purchase certified Romanian seeds," said Orban.
Orban and Oros visited the city of Buzau on Friday, where they toured the local Plant Genetic Resources Bank, met local business people and called on Green Tech, a plastics recycling company.
