Yuri Ushurelu
As Logos Press reported the other day, the Moldovan office of the International Fund for Agricultural Development IFAD announced the adjustment of the course of its programs in the direction of agri-food marketing. This fund is one of the oldest development partners for Moldova, it opened its mission in our country 25 years ago. During this period, the Fund’s Moldovan office, together with the Government of the Republic of Moldova and other international donors, has implemented seven programs. At present, projects under the IFAD-VIII program are at the implementation stage.
As a specialized agency of FAO/UN, IFAD, in full accordance with the mission of its founding organizations, has focused all its programmes in RM on combating rural poverty and increasing the resilience of agriculture to economic and climatic challenges. Moldovan IFAD projects developed fruit growing, including greenhouse vegetable growing, “small-scale” irrigation, post-harvest infrastructure, systems of conservation and regenerative agriculture (mini-till and no-till). Preferential IFAD funding was used to publish didactic literature on agro-technologies, purchase agricultural machinery and equipment for processing agricultural products, build water storage basins and drainage systems, plant windbreaks etc. However, marketing projects within IFAD programs in RM have not yet been implemented separately.
As Iurie Usurelu, Director of the Joint Implementation Unit (CPIU) of IFAD programs, noted for Logos Press, the marketing of agri-food products in the list of future activities of the Fund appeared both as a response to the request of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry of RM, and as a result of a study of the needs of agriculture in the country, conducted by the evaluation mission of the Fund. It is likely that IFAD marketing projects in Moldova will appear in the future funding cycle of the fund for the country.
Judging by Iurie Usurelu’s remarks, it can be assumed that the objects of IFAD’s consulting and financial support will be the so-called “marketing groups” of farmers – commercial associations like entrepreneurial cooperatives. The European program TACIS and the American agency USAID have previously assisted in establishing and ensuring the work at the initial stage of such structures in the Republic of Moldova. More recently, the World Bank has provided preferential financing to farmers’ marketing groups for the purchase of equipment and construction of processing/infrastructure facilities through the MAS-R project in RM. Until recently, additional subsidies for investment projects of farmers’ marketing groups were also provided from the (state budgetary) National Fund for Agriculture and Rural Development.
Many of these donor programs have already ended or frozen. The system of state budget subsidies for agriculture in RM is likely to change drastically as the new law will be adopted in the near future. In such a situation, IFAD funds for marketing cooperation for farmers may be very useful, for lack of alternatives.
What else have donor programs and projects in RM focused on agri-food marketing been doing in the past? For example, they financed the development and promotion of national level trademarks – Moldova Fruct, Honey of Moldova and others. We provided assistance to sectoral non-governmental organizations and state structures in their attempts, sometimes successful, to penetrate and gain a foothold in new external markets for agri-food products. For this purpose, donor structures and projects have for many years financed the participation of Moldovan producers, often with a single national stand, in international exhibitions. This “business tourism” also bore fruit, at least due to the “transition of quantity into quality”. Apparently, it will be good if this kind of activity will be financed in the future. Especially if not from the state budget of RM.
