Moldovan pig farmers waiting for state assistance
In 2025, due to the detection of African swine fever outbreaks on pig farms in Roscani and Cimiseni, about 118,000 pigs were destroyed. The amount of damage exceeded 440 million lei. The administrations of the enterprises claim for reimbursement from the state in the amount of 150-200 million lei. Recently, the management of one of the pig-breeding companies reminded the country’s authorities that the relevant request had been submitted to the authorized agency, but the enterprise has not received compensation yet. Earlier, the head of the MAIA Agriculture and Food Ministry, Ludmila Catlabuga, assured the industry operators that they would receive compensation.
Probably, in order to speed up the process, the other day the country’s well-known economist Veaceslav Ionice noted that in just one last year the pork production in Moldova fell to the level of ten years ago – about 27 thousand tons. Whereas in 2024, the country produced almost 39 thousand tons of pork – a historical maximum.
“The industry is of strategic importance for the national economy – emphasized Veaceslav Ionitsa. – When it produces meat worth 2 billion lei, as it did in 2024, it brings up to 8.5 billion lei of revenue to the economy. Every leu generated in this sector brings another three lei to related industries. Pig farming consumes about a third of the cereals grown in Moldova and contributes to the development of other sectors, such as feed production. The industry provides about 1.1 thousand jobs in industrial pig farms alone and creates almost 4.7 thousand more jobs along the entire value chain, employing almost 6 thousand people”.
The problem is pork imports?
The quoted source also mentioned that last year, due to the losses of domestic pig production from ASF, Moldova imported more than 11 thousand tons of pork and live pigs for slaughter.
By the way, about the growing sanitary risks in connection with the import of pork products to Moldova, the head of one of the largest pig-breeding enterprises in the country recently stated in his interview to the Moldovan news aggregator. He called on the authorized agency to strengthen control at the border.
