Romania’s RFK Jr. is about good food and helping farmers – POLITICO

On By Littum

In a country where farmers make up 23 percent of the workforce and 18 percent of the population — far they most of any EU state — Georgescu’s agri-food policy is crucial. His 17 pages 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 US presidential candidate who joined Donald Trump’s successful campaign and was rewarded with the nomination to become health secretary.

Like RFK Jr.Georgescu advocates a “radical environmentalism” that defies the usual left-right divide, delving into anti-globalist motifs shared by extremists on both sides. He attacks intensive farming with its “toxic” agricultural chemicals and “polluting and inefficient” production, promising instead to “support peasant farming and traditional, organic farming.”

“Synthetic insecticides and pesticides will be replaced with organic alternatives, and long-lasting chemicals will be replaced with active substances from nature,” according to his manifesto. This will preserve “forests and clean rivers, save bees, (and ensure) clean, high-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.” All this costs money, and the state should fight for 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

of the European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)its agricultural support pot, should be redirected to small farmers (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.