Sorin Ignat, Agribusiness Director at Banca Transilvania, was a guest on ZF Agropower, where he discussed the potential of Romanian agriculture, looked back at the 2025 crop year and the outlook for this year. You can watch the full interview here, and below are a few highlights:

On agriculture in Romania

• Romanian agriculture has developed significantly. It would be a pity not to acknowledge the merit of the farmers who have built up experience and capital and invested in their farms, which are often ahead of those in the West in terms of technology and productivity.
  
  
• We are in a market somewhat at Europe’s periphery, a raw materials market, so our competition is not necessarily with Western countries. It is more with the countries in the Black Sea basin, where we compete in exports of grains or live animals. The main challenge is to find our markets and our identity so that we can compete with the others.
  
  
• Banks have financed agriculture. There is a significant year‑on‑year increase in outstanding loans, including in 2023, 2024 and especially 2025.
  
  
• Romania has greater potential than its neighboring countries: Hungary does not have such easy access to markets, being tied to the Western market, while Bulgaria likely has smaller acreage for field crops than we do.
  
  

On investments, financing and growth opportunities for farmers

• Livestock is the first value‑added link after crop farming, and it is important for investors to move beyond this stage—which still means operating in another raw materials market—and shift toward processing and bringing food products to market. Many clients are making the move toward value added. After crop farming, they step into livestock, and then into processing.
  
  
• We will continue to finance performance: clients with medium‑ and long‑term plans for the investments they have in mind, from purchasing farmland and building irrigation systems to on‑farm development or expansion into other segments. There is full openness at Banca Transilvania to find sustainable projects to finance in 2026.
  
  
• Banca Transilvania is the main lender to the poultry sector. We look closely at all growth opportunities for farmers and support them in their projects. Whether it is investments to increase capacity, expand product ranges or start‑ups entering the market now at a favorable time for livestock, what matters is that these projects are sustainable and profitable, and that the scenarios investors model are aligned with what is happening in the market.
  
  
• We have the privilege of seeing investments from the seaside to Pecica, from Darabani to Giurgiu, and we are seeing many good things happening.
  
  

2025 crop year in review and the outlook for this year

• In the 2025 crop year we discussed a smaller corn output. Volumes depend very much on the objectives. If the objective is to achieve a large corn crop, the climate will likely be an issue; but that should not be the objective. We should produce the crops that can be profitable under current weather conditions.
  
  
• Beyond weather factors, we should also consider market conditions, because when you have a big crop, prices fall and you cannot secure the profitability you would have wanted or the profitability you need to move the business forward.
  
  
• At the start of the calendar year, we can say we had an autumn and winter with rains and snowfall unlike any since 2017. So, if we look only at water availability, it is a good crop year. We still need to see how things evolve and what happens up to harvest. Expectations are always high; reality can change, as we saw last year with sunflower and corn. Had we spoken in July, optimism was at its peak. The reality turned out differently.
  
  

On export trends and narrowing the agri‑food deficit

• Agri‑food exports have increased. At first we attributed this to the demand from Romanians living abroad who want the taste of Romania. Lately, however, we are seeing more exports to markets that have no connection to Romania or significant Romanian communities. This shows there is willingness to buy and it comes as a result of investment in technology and the quality products those investments have brought to the food industry.
  
  
• The agri‑food deficit can be reduced either by lowering imports or by increasing exports. A lot depends on how consumption evolves. Consumption forecasts are cautious or cautiously optimistic, which could temper certain categories of imports. But export demand is likely to remain strong for poultry meat.