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Court of Accounts: Preventing effects of climate change in Romanian agriculture affected by deficiencies
The Court of Accounts of Romania has addressed a series of recommendations to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MADR) regarding the establishment of measures to prevent and combat the effects of climate change in agriculture, given that the performance of activities in this area has been affected by some deficiencies, vulnerabilities and weaknesses, told Agerpres.
According to a press release sent to AGERPRES on Thursday, the recommendations were formulated in the context of the performance audit on Preventing and combating the effects of climate change in Romanian agriculture, a mission carried out between February 2022 and March 2023, for the period 2000-2021.
"The audit found that a unified national strategy has not been implemented in the agriculture and rural development sector. MADR is responsible for agricultural policies, having a key role in sector-specific policies and measures, as well as those related to climate change, and the absence of a unitary strategy affects the coherence of policies and measures in the sector," the press release reads.
According to the source, in the last 20 years, the National Strategy for Combating Desertification and Land Degradation has been implemented to a limited extent, mainly due to the non-approval of the Strategy's implementation programme, the lack of implementation tools, the weak capacity for inter-sectoral cooperation and the inconsistencies between the proposed programmes and local community plans.
In land improvement, the auditors of the Court of Accounts reported that MADR has not developed and implemented a national strategy covering the entire system of irrigation, drainage and soil erosion control, in order to prevent and mitigate the action of risk factors: drought, soil erosion, excess water, floods.
According to the audit, in the agricultural research sector MADR has not implemented a strategic vision to establish responsibilities, priorities and research themes for mitigating the effects of climate change and adapting agriculture to them either.
"There is no centralised inventory of degraded land and no programme for its reforestation, although it was a legal obligation. Given the low degree of afforestation in the period 2010-2022 (only 1021 ha of degraded land reforested and taken over into the national forestry fund until 2015, after which no further work was carried out), the auditors expressed reasonable reservations about the achievement, by 2035, of the target set out in the Forestry Code, of "reforestation of land for purposes other than forestry, in an area of 2 million ha," the source says.
In order to eliminate deficiencies, mitigate risks and weaknesses identified, the audit team made a number of recommendations, including: strengthening the institutional capacity of MADR for integrated and coordinated management of specific activities related to preventing and combating the effects of climate change in agriculture, developing operational procedures and its own regulations, procedures and instructions for the types of risks for which MADR is the authority with a primary and secondary role; taking the necessary steps to develop a unified strategy for reducing the effects of drought, preventing and combating the degradation and desertification of agricultural land, clarifying and harmonising legislation and regulations in this area; integrating programmes for the rehabilitation and modernisation of irrigation infrastructure, drainage/drainage systems and soil erosion control into a national strategy reflecting the Government's vision for the efficiency, modernisation and/or extension of land improvement infrastructure, with the aim of adapting agriculture to climate change and reducing its effects on agricultural production.
According to the Court of Accounts, the selection of the audit topic was motivated by the general interest in the impact of climate change on agriculture, a sector vulnerable to its negative effects. On the occasion of the audit mission carried out at MADR, documentation activities were carried out at the National Land Improvement Agency, at the National Anti-Hail and Rainfall Management System Administration, as well as at the Ministry of Environment, Water and Forests.
