In a country where farmers make up 23 percent of the labor force and 18 percent of the population — by far the most of any EU state — Georgescu’s agrifood policies are crucial. His 17-page manifesto is titled “Food, Water, Energy: A return to the roots of the Romanian nation,” and serves up a sugary hit of utopian, feel-good measures for rural areas.
“He has the same ideas as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” said Cristian Pîrvulescu, professor of political studies at Bucharest’s main university, referring to the former United States presidential candidate who joined Donald Trump’s successful campaign and was rewarded with the nomination to become health secretary.
Like RFK Jr., Georgescu espouses a “radical ecologism” that defies the usual left-right divide, dipping into anti-globalist leitmotifs shared by extremists on both sides. He attacks intensive farming, with its “toxic” agrochemicals and “polluting and inefficient” output, vowing instead to “support peasant farming and traditional, organic agriculture.”
“Synthetic insecticides and pesticides will be replaced with ecological alternatives, and long-lasting chemicals will be replaced with active substances from nature,” according to his manifesto. This will preserve “forests and clean rivers, saving bees, [and ensuring] clean and quality food,” his screed promises.
The university professor adds that “it is crucial to protect the soil” since “soil is Romania’s first strategic resource.” This all costs money and the state should champion its farmers, with “capitalization of small producers, support for local markets, [and] a network of popular and cooperative banks” to finance an agroecological revolution.
Make farming great again
The European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), its farm subsidy pot, should be redirected to smallholders (who account for over 90 percent of Romanian farmers) and the country’s system of extensive, small-scale production “should become a model to follow in the Balkans and in Europe,” Georgescu demands.
