Outlook & Our Vision

All the international economic indicators show us that this sector is growing rapidly and generating big economic and strategic return. In the past five years, larger countries (such as China, India, Saudi Arabia, etc.) threw themselves into these type of business activities both for economic  and strategic reasons.

The last data of  the “Agriculture Outlook Report” edited by FAO and OECD shows that to supply  the growing demand (in food, energetic and environmental terms), farms and forestry sector will have to increase their production by 60% in next  40 years.  

Instead, if we follow the present trends, we will have a decrease in the availability of those products and services  at an average of 1,7 %  each year. Moreover approximately  25% of all agricultural areas in the world are already compromised for several reasons (climate, pollution, environmental, etc…)

Finally we must take into consideration that the last report  “International Farmland Focus 2012” (edited by Savills) shows that the “Savills Global Farmland Index” (that measures the property value of the agriculture areas ) has grown from 2002 to 2010 by an average of 400% (with maximum of 1817% in Romania)

Since the 80s, many billions of dollars have been spent every year in “rural development” policies. Great progress has been made in this sense.

However, in the last 20 years, there has been a tendency to finance small-scale projects and support small-scale interventions, assuming that these would result in more equitable and widespread development. Although this assumption proved to be true in more economically developed countries (essentially in Europe and North America), it absolutely didn’t in the rest of the world.

In particular, the available figures and economic data (World Bank, IMF, EBRD, EIB etc.) show that small-scale projects, carried out in developing and former developing countries, tend to stop producing economically relevant and durable effects without continuous subventions and external financial support. This evidently nullifies the effort to support the autonomous development of rural populations.

Three essential guidelines can be deduced from this analysis:

1) Only those projects with a full economic sustainability (especially in terms of profitability) survive. Unprofitable projects, through socially relevant, prove to be unsustainable over time.

2) Only large-scale projects, especially in terms of agricultural land involved (also in relation to its fertility and accessibility) produce a positive and durable effect over time.

3) Only those projects with a strong integration between the different areas of interest involved produce an economic effect capable of generating further internal economic strength. Integration should be both horizontal (in terms of supply chain) and vertical (in terms of system) and should involve each single aspect (agricultural production, processing industry, social housing, marketing etc.).