“It is of crucial importance for Romania to secure sustainable agriculture production also through efficient investment in rehabilitation and modernization of the existing irrigation systems where irrigated agriculture proves to be economically viable and farmers are interested in irrigation” said Adrian Nastase, Prime Minister of Romania, during a recent meeting with World Bank President James Wolfensohn.

Romania has a total of 15 million hectares of agricultural land, two thirds of which are arable, giving the agricultural sector considerable potential to produce a commercially viable and diverse mix of temperate crop and livestock products. Irrigation is vital to Romanian agriculture for several reasons. First, it offsets rain deficits in the country’s semi-arid southern and eastern regions. The water demands of crops during July and August are 300-500 mm, leaving a crop water deficit of some 200-350 mm. This makes irrigation necessary for most summer crops such as maize, vegetables, sugar beet, sunflower, potatoes. Irrigation also minimizes the climatic risks affecting agriculture, ensuring the stability in production necessary for commercial farming. It can also encourage private farmers in certain areas to convert to higher value crops such as vegetables.

The project has four components:

• Rehabilitation of irrigation infrastructure, aiming at restoration of the original capacity of economic irrigation schemes through rehabilitation of deteriorated irrigation infrastructure. The sub-components considered include the rehabilitation of the main infrastructure in a number of economic schemes, the rehabilitation of major pumping stations, the installation of water metering equipment in pumping stations and there habilitation of tertiary facilities (including pressure pumping stations and on-farm infrastructure).
• Institutional Reform, to support the Government program for restructuring the land reclamation sector and securing its sustainable development through the establishment and strengthening of the Land Reclamation Agency; strengthening the existing water users’ associations (WUA) and continuing their development. A comprehensive economic assessment of the irrigation sector will also be conducted.
• Technologies for the reduction of energy consumption and on – farm water management, which will support technical assistance studies and small pilot projects to address the need for a decline in energy consumption.
• Project Management providing management support necessary for project implementation, including funding for technical assistance (TA), staff training, equipment associated with the establishment and operation of the Project Management Unit (PMU).

The rehabilitation of the main schemes would directly benefit approximately 40,000 farming families and workers in agricultural associations. The WUA support program would benefit more than 100 WUAs while a majority of project beneficiaries would be from low-income groups. The project would also benefit the large associations farms which are carrying out large-scale cultivation of high value crops such as tomatoes and beans, or industrial crops such as sunflowers. Finally, the irrigation sector reform envisaged under the project would indirectly benefit an estimated 200,000 farming families nationwide (about 10% of rural population) through empowerment and more economic use of available resources, and more cost-effective, reliable and efficient delivery of irrigation water.

The total cost of the Irrigation Rehabilitation and Reform Project is US$103 million, including the US$80 million Bank loan, US$20.7 million from the Romanian government, and US$2.3 million from local communities (through water users’ associations). The loan has a maturity of 17 years, including a five-year grace period.

Since 1991, the Bank’s commitments to Romania total over US$3 billion for 30 operations.