ROMANIA

Executive Summary

This report gathers data regarding the resources of oil crops, fibre crops, carbohydrate crops and medicinal and aromatic plants and their non-food use in Romania.

Oil Crops
Sunflower, soybean, rapeseed, castor plant and linseed for oil are all oilseeds cultivated in Romania. Sunflower is at present the main oilseed crop. In recent years (since 1990), the area cultivated with sunflower, and the subsequent production, has varied significantly, between 395,000 ha and 1,200,000 ha (in 2003). The areas cultivated, and subsequently the production, of the other oil crops have also varied, but there has been a general decrease in area since 1990, although in the last four years (2000-2003) the production of oilseed crops has slightly increased.

Vegetable oils production is 175,000-250,000 t/year, of which 2-6% is utilised for non-food purposes. The main non-food utilisation of vegetable oils and their derivates is in the paints and varnishes industry, namely: linseed technical oil for manufacturing processed oils for the impregnation of wood; soybean technical oil for the synthesis of alchidic resins utilised for the manufacturing of industrial paints; sunflower fatty acids for the synthesis of resins utilised for the manufacturing of decorative and industrial paints; technical castor oil for alchidic resins utilised in industrial paints, soyalecitin for decorative paints.

The following consumptions of vegetable oils and derivates for non-food use are estimated at the level of the last 5 years for Romania: technical linseed oil: 100 t/year; technical soybean oil: 850 t/year, technical castor oil: 100 t/year, sunflower fat acids 2,700 t/year, soyalecitin: 35 t/year.

The trends for the Romanian market of oil products used in the varnishes and paints industry are: unchanging maintenance of linseed oil consumption in the short term and its decrease in the long term because of substitutes; unchanging maintenance of soybean oil consumption in the short term and its decrease in the medium term because of the trend to substitute it by fat-acids; increase of sunflower fat-acids consumption for manufacturing light coloured resins: decrease of castor oil consumption owing to the limitation of the industrial paints market.

Fibre Crops
Fibre crops traditionally cultivated in Romania are flax and hemp. Unfortunately, the culture of these two crops recorded a continuous regress after 1989, thus the flax cultivated area in 2003 (400 ha) was approximately 0.5% of that of 1989 (70,000 ha), while the production (800 t) was approximately 0.6% compared to the year 1989. The situation is rather similar for fibre hemp: in 2003 the cultivated area (1,200 ha) represented only 2.7% of that of the year 1989 (46,000 ha), while the production (3,100 t) was 2.7% compared to the level of 1989.

The reasons for these decrease are: retrocession of the land from the state to the former owners; farmers own relatively low production areas and consequently have low financial possibilities to buy high quality seed and to initiate new cultures in this field; they had options for other crops; decrease in the number of processing units; decline of the domestic textile industry; increase of imported ready-made clothes.

The technological processes of extraction of fibres from stems are traditionally biological processes (anaerobic melting in water) and mechanical processes (scutching). All flax and hemp fibre is used in textile applications, including thin wet and dry spun yarns, strings and ropes; technical articles (tarpaulins, tents, sacks, hessian, tie bands, non-woven articles); woven materials with simple and combined ties; ready-made clothes (clothes, bed and table cloths etc.); decorative articles.

Romania has ideal pedoclimatic conditions for flax and hemp cultures. There are also about 20 processing units for flax and hemp fibres and yarns which need to be modernised and retechnologised. In this respect, the Central Union for Hemp and Flax from Romania and the company Treu Hanf AG from Germany have initiated a common project for improving and developing the flax and hemp industry in Romania.

Carbohydrate Crops
In Romania the food and non-food starch producing factories use maize (65-75% starch content) as a vegetable raw material. The maize is cultivated on about 50% of the area cultivated with cereals for grains (about 3,100 thousand ha/year) the annual production being 10,000-11,000 thousand tonnes. There is no specific area cultivated with maize for non-food applications, but from the whole maize production only about 0.2% is destined for non-food uses.

The most important consumption of non-food starch is in the paper industry (5,000-6,000 t/year), followed by the textile industry.

Speciality Crops
In Romania there is a great diversity of medicinal and aromatic plants cultivated or collected from wild flora. The agronomist researchers succeeded in creating 28 Romanian varieties of plants and on establishing cultivation technologies (adapted to the pedoclimatic conditions from Romania) for about 50 vegetable species. The area cultivated with medicinal and aromatic herbs is about 12,000 ha/year, the production being 5,000-6,000 t/year dry vegetable material. This has decreased from an area of 23,000 ha in 1993 (12,000 tonnes), due to the fact that the large dispersion of cultivated areas has not allowed yet a satisfactory traceability and reproducible quality of the vegetable material, requested by the more severe requirements in the production of speciality products enforced by the European legislation being implemented in Romania.

The main cultivated species are: coriander, common marigold, artichoke, garden thyme, common fennel, hyssop wort, balm, peppermint, common spearmint, white mustard, shapsage, milk thistle.

Beside the cultivated plants, about 155 varieties of medicinal and aromatic plants are collected from wild flora (750 - 850 t/year).

The non-food products obtained in Romania from medicinal and aromatic plants can be classified in the following manner:
- vegetable products constituted from leaves, flowers, herb, seeds, fruit, roots, which are components of diverse simple or complex teas utilised as adjuvants in prevention therapy of some diseases;
- extracts, bioactive complexes and pure substances isolated from herbs to be used in the pharmaceutical industry or in cosmetics (formulated as tablets capsules, syrups, ointments, gels);
- essential oils useful in the pharmaceutical industry or in cosmetics.

The products are physically, chemically and microbiologically characterised according to the Romanian Pharmacopea ed. X requirements (which are correlated with those imposed by European Pharmacopea). The introduction into the market of vegetable origin products (drugs or cosmetics) needs the approval of the National Agency of Drug from Romania, whose methodology is lined to the requirements imposed by the European Union.

The research in the field of medicinal herbs is effected at institutes of applicative research and at universities. Although there are human resources adequately qualified, this field lagged behind from the point of view of equipments, most of them being morally and physically old fashioned.