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The role of agriculture is an extremely important one because it provides the necessary production of foods for the population and, at the same time, represents a source of raw materials for different processing industries. For a growing population, agriculture has been the main source of agri-food products that must ensure the food security of the population. Compared to other states of Europe, Romania is one of the European countries with the most favourable soil and climate conditions for agriculture. The last world crises, from the crisis in 2008 to the pandemic crisis in 2020-2021, and especially to the current conflict between Russia and the Ukraine, have brought up the issue of food self-sufficiency. During the current period, it is important to know what production can be obtained in Romanian agriculture and if it can provide the food necessary for the population. An analysis regarding the dynamics of the cultivated areas and production of the main crops in Romania has been carried out, for each of its 8 development regions. The data, collected from different sources, were analysed using different methods. The research results highlight, for example, that Romania can easily achieve the self-sufficiency stage for most agricultural products of plant origin. In conclusion, natural resources, as well as the existence of a certain material base in Romanian agriculture, can ensure the increase of agricultural production, the satisfaction of the food needs of the population, as well as a certain availability for export.

In this article we will present the natural and anthropic potential of Gorj County. The studied area has a diversified tourist potential which is represented by a picturesque natural setting, by monuments of architecture and art of great artistic value, some of them of international interest, but also by a valuable folklore and ethnographic heritage. The present paper aims to stimulate interest and draw attention to the existing tourist attractions in Gorj County and highlights the fact that tourism represents an important lever for the local development of urban and rural localities.

There is a lot to say about the agricultural performance of Constanța County, but they are best reflected in this article. Constanta County has 707,129 hectares of land, of which 87% is arable. The natural potential of the region and the climatic conditions are favorable for the development of agricultural activities, therefore the main agricultural crops grown here are wheat, corn, potatoes, oilseeds and vegetables. Regarding the area of vineyards by fruit, the South-East region ranks first in the country, being known both domestically and internationally. Also, the industrialization and processing of agricultural products is provided by 136 companies specialized in the food industry.

Agricultural production varies from season to season, so it requires current decisions in a constant effort to maximize profits and minimize the effort and resources used. In this article we will present the evolution of agricultural production in Gorj County. Gorj covers an area of 560,174 ha and has about 240,000 hectares of agricultural land, the rest being occupied by forests, urban areas, stretches of water, etc. Animal husbandry and forestry, as well as fruit growing, viticulture and beekeeping are specific activities for the north of the county, the cereal culture being present especially in the center and south. The livestock sector includes significant herds of cattle (30,883 heads), pigs (73,872 heads), sheep (122,336 heads), goats (25,354 heads), birds (108,6471 heads).

Regional development is a new concept whose opportunities are enhancing and diversifying economic activities, enhancing investments in the private sector, contributing to unemployment reduction, and last but not least improving the standard of living. To assure the development policies in economy, agriculture, forestry, tourism, regional planning, infrastructure, and education etc., it is needed to take into account the specific conditions of the rural regions, Romanian villages and to observe the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity. In this context, the paper aimed to point out the opportunities for the development of rural communities through regional development.

Rural development and diversification of rural economy depend on the level of education, knowledge and qualification. Though improving and maintaining the proper level of basic infrastructure is an important element in the social and economic development of the rural area, it is professional training that represents the “engine” of good development. Education and training are essential for rural communities, but there are obvious discrepancies from the point of view of school infrastructure. Though we can say that the number of schools in the rural area is above the necessary one, education quality is low because, on one hand, of the poor educational infrastructure and, on the other hand, because of the level o training of the teachers. Most of the schools need to be renovated, to be refurnished, to be reequipped and to be supplied with teaching materials. Infrastructures and facilities proper to professional training and to primary education are important tools for the conversion of agricultural labour force into non-agricultural labour force.

In recent yearsmanyextremenatural phenomena have affected not only agriculture, but the population of the country as well. The continuous deterioration of the environmental conditions has produced irreversible effects on people’s lives and activities. Protection curtains are a solution for such phenomena. In this paper, the authors focus on the main phenomena challenging the environment and highlights a few solutions that could diminish the negative effects of such phenomena on thequality of lifeand the environment. Research shows that Romania’s population, in general, and Romania’s rural population, in particular, as well as the national economy, has been challenged these two decades by extreme meteorological phenomena of particular amplitude: heat and severe drought, abundant rainfall, land glides and catastrophic floods, and abundant stormy snow falls.

The analysis presented in this paper points out the fact that we need to make fundamental improvements in the Western Region if we want to be able to face the future challenges generated by new investments with a view to increase economic activities, to improve institutional activities, and to make short-term specific investments in both human resources and infrastructure. The authors of this paper have reached the conclusion that the Western Region needs investments in the business environment in both developed areas and underdeveloped areas or unfavoured areas

Through this research is analyzed labor force from Romanian agriculture. The agriculture in Romania has a very large share in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Compared to other countries, the share of romanian agriculture in the GDP is 1.6 times higher compared to Hungary, almost three times compared to Poland and more than nine times to European Union. This does not explain the performance of romanian agriculture, but rather show the underperforming of the other sectors (industry and services sector) from Romania compared to those sectors of the developed countries. Also, Romania is currently one of the European countries, with the most farmers about 30% of the total active population. This share is almost 40% of the number of farmers, existing in the European Union, where the share of the active population in agriculture of all activities, is less than 5%. In Romania, the share of active population employed in agriculture, was relatively stable until 1990, about 3 million people were employed in this area. Structural economic reforms and dismantling of Agricultural Production Cooperatives of the early 1990s led to a drastic increase of the labor force employed in agriculture area. Rural labor force is engaged mainly in the agricultural sector, which is one of the major constraints of economic development of the country. Regarding of the quantitative and qualitative structural evolution of the labor resources in romanian agriculture, on long-term, the employment in agriculture fall into the general tend of all countries wich are in the course of modernization, respectively of the absolute and relative reduction.

In this paper, the authors conducted a study on the economic development of Timiş County, as well as its SWOT analysis. The paper concludes with the Development Strategy of Timiş County, the main conclusions drawn from the conducted researches and bibliographical references. Within the paper, there are presented theoretical aspects related to rural area concept, followed by the physical- geographical characteristics of Timiş County. Throughout the paper, there are analyzed the existing demographic aspects found in Timiş County. The end part of the paper represents a translation in statistical terms of the main economic phenomena which are recorded in Timiş County. There are references made towards agriculture, forestry, industry, services, trade, tourism, as economic activities carried out in Timis County. Following these researches, at the end part of the paper, the authors have compiled a SWOT analysis of Timiş County, proposing in the same time a strategy for its development.

In this paper the authors analyze the migratory movement of population from Romania. Demographic dynamics of the last decade confirms that Romania's population declined. The demographic developments in Romania have mainly economic reasons (examples : migration, low birth rate, rural - urban migration). The comparative analysis of statistical data obtained in the population censuses of 2002 and 2011 shows that the most of the Romanian communities have lost population due to a negative natural and migratory growth. Fron the situation of the absent population ( migrants ) at the time of the population census, between 2002 and 2011 is that the number of those who have left home for longer periods has increased exponentially. Most of those absents from their home at the time of the last population census were living abroad. Romania needs a realistic vision of economic and social development in the coming decades. In defining and naming a strategy for sustainable development, population is the central element and from this perspective one of the strategy component should be to stop the demographic skidding. Simultaneously with the decrease of the total population, Romania records a demographic aging trend. The causes are both negative natural growth ( low birth rate combined with high mortality) and also the migration phenomena. Projections show that these trends will persist on the medium and long term.

The paper studied new system of agriculture - crop systems without soil. The culture systems without soil can be called also the hydroponic systems and now in Romania are not used only sporadically. In other countries (USA, Japan, the Netherlands, France, UK, Denmark, Israel, Australia, etc..) they represent the modern crop technology, widely applied to vegetables, fruits, fodder, medicinal plants and flowers by the experts in this area. In the world, today there are millions of hectares hydroponics, most of the vegetables, herbs, fruits of hypermarkets are coming from the culture systems without soil. The process consists of growing plants in nutrient solutions (not in the ground), resorting to an complex equipment, depending on the specifics of each crop, so that the system can be applied only in the large farms, in the greenhouses, and not in the individual households. These types of culture systems have a number of advantages and disadvantages also. Even if today's culture systems without soil seem to be the most modern and surprising technology applied in plant growth, the principle is very old. Based on him were built The Suspended Gardens of the Semiramis from Babylon, in the seventh century BC, thanks to him, the population from the Peru”s highlands cultivates vegetables on surfaces covered with water or mud. The peasant households in China, even today use the millenary techniques of the crops on gravel. .This hydroponic agriculture system is a way of followed for Romanian agriculture too, despite its high cost, because it is very productive, ecological, can cover, by products, all market demands and it answer, increasingly, constraints of urban life. The concept of hydroponics agriculture is known and appreciated in Romania also, but more at the theory level.

Within this paper, the authors have analyzed the current state of agriculture development in our country with reference to the following aspects: land Fund, the typology of agricultural holdings, size and dimension of agricultural holdings, agricultural production, agricultural labor force, as well as the degree of equipment with agricultural machines and devices. After the year 1990, the Romanian agriculture has undergone profound changes in the structure of land ownership, large agricultural units disappeared as their communist organization way and therefore new types of holdings appeared: family households, family associations, agricultural societies. Following the conducted analysis, the authors underline the existence of a very large number of small farms in parallel with very large farms, which reveals structural imbalance affecting agriculture in our country and its competitiveness. From the performed analysis within this paper, there can be concluded that in Romania there are three types of agriculture: a subsistence type agriculture - characterized by agricultural holdings to 10 hectares, representing a share of 97.7% of total holdings and occupy 38.7% of UAA; a middle type agriculture - defined by agricultural holdings of 10 to 100 hectares, representing a share of 1.9% of total holdings and occupy 12.4% of UAA; an agro-industrial type agriculture - agricultural holdings of over 100 hectares, representing a share of 0.4% of total number of holdings and occupy 48.9% of UAA.

Currently in Romania there are farming systems very complex. The complexity of systems is determined by the natural and socio-economic conditions, the development level of the science and technology with the evolution of human society. The literature contains a large number of farming systems and their name is made by one of the specific measures (specific work ) that these includes. The Systems Agriculture widely used and those dominated are: the conventional farming systems, biodynamic, biological and sustainable farming system, that has emerged in the last decade. The need to create sustainable agriculture , that is stable and sustainable and a clean environment has emerged due to the danger caused by the negative effects of chemicalization agriculture. The creating implications of a sustainable agriculture system will allow of the agricultural activities to maintain the natural environment clean and to protect the fragile areas.

Accessing and absorbing European funds for agriculture represents the greatest challenge for Romanian public administration, business environment and non-governmental institutions. Making use of European funds is an opportunity to boost the economic growth of Romania, since it would mean an annual capital input equal with up to 5% of the gross domestic product. The paper presents details regarding disbursement of grants for Romanian agriculture and related sectors, for the main measures of the National Plan for Rural Development , since the beginning of plan implementation until now.

Romanian rural communities are characterised mainly by an ageing population, by a decrease of birth rate and by a dependence on agriculture, particularly subsistence agriculture and demi-subsistence agriculture. The policy of rural development of the European Union aims at solving the issues of rural areas through the exploitation of their potential and by ensuring the proper services and infrastructure. Income sources are scarce because of the few jobs and this has major implications on life quality in the rural communities. Therefore, local authorities should be concerned with the development of their own localities and with the improvement of their inhabitants’ life quality and implement successfully some development programmes or projects. The goal of the present paper is to present the most favourable ways of development for the rural communities in the development Region West, Romania, an area confronted with such issues as shortage of jobs and low incomes and where there are discrepancies between the economic developments of the counties making it up. Based on the analyses carried out and on study cases, the authors present the main aspects of the rural areas in the region, pointing out the fact that local authorities should be concerned with the development of their own localities and implement successfully development projects.The authors have reached the conclusion that the development of non-agricultural activities determines the diversification and increase of jobs and, implicitly, the increase of life quality in rural communities.

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the European Union aims to address the challenges faced by the agricultural sector. The new CAP focuses on the central role of farms and farmers in addressing climate change, preserving rural landscapes, and ensuring food quality. It is very important to understand which are the main production area in agriculture in EU and from this paper we can conclude that cereals with milk production and winery are the motor of the industry. We analyse agriculture industry because it is considered the most important industry in EU due the various implications also in other industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]