Aspects regarding the agricultural landscapes in the context of Romanian culture

1. Research Institute of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development Aspects regarding the agricultural landscapes in the context of Romanian culture Elena TOMA, Vili DRAGOMIR PECSRL - 23rd Session "LANDSCAPES, IDENTITIES AND DEVELOPMENT" Lisbon / Óbidos, Portugal, 1-5 September 2008

2. Land is formed by the influence of its parent rock, terrain, climate and vegetation (which itself depends on the land, climate and the way in which man manages the vegetation).The landscape is shaped by geomorphology (terrain, hydrography) and the occupation and use of the land (forestry, agriculture, urbanisation). The land and landscape are interrelated and reflect the results of centuries of human activity. Firstly, terrain and hydrography have determined the pattern of human settlements. The development of agriculture around these "living centres" has been closely linked to local pedology. In this way, the land with the best agronomic potential has been cultivated, whereas the land of poorer quality and/or further away from the living centres has remained covered by forests. These different types of land occupation and use combined with land relief and hydrography have shaped the countryside throughout our history, in tandem with demographic factors. From the land to the countryside and from land occupation to land use, everything which affects the territory of Romania forms part of our cultural heritage. The approach used in this presentation of Romanian landscape is integrating physical, socio-economical and cultural factors. The concept of cultural is explored asan important structure of evolution of the landscape in the presence and transformation of the natural and human pattern of rural spaces. Looking this way, we basically consider that the rural landscape formed in the countryside has: aphysical dimension - the sum of the natural elements with direct implication on the landscape ahistoricaldimension - the sum of the surviving physical impacts of people on the landscape a cultural dimension - the sum of theintangible meanings, values, attributes and associations that people attach to its physicalcomponents

3. General characterisation of Romanian landscape According to the national definition, rural areas in Romania cover 87.1% of the territory, and include 45.1% of thepopulation (over 9.7 million inhabitants). Romania's agriculture, with an area of 14.8 mil. ha, represents a significant sector of the national economy in terms of area contribution to the GDP (13%) and share in the total employment (37.5%). In the rural areas there are about 4.2 mil. households, owning 10.3 mil. ha of agricultural land, with an average farm size less than 2.5 ha. Romania is a medium-size country (23.84 mil. ha), located in the south-eastern part of Europe. Its relief is varied, consisting of flood plains, plains, piedmonts, hills, and mountains, classified in about 52 eco-regions. The eco-regionsinclude aquatic and terrestrial types of ecosystem characteristic for the Black Sea coastal and littoral area, steppe,forestry - steppe, hill, mountain, lakes, rivers and their meadows, wetland, grassland, marsh and rock areas, and the veryspecific Danube Delta ecosystem. Romania has a unique natural heritage, offered by Carpathian Mountains (65% of theCarpathian eco-region) as well as by one of the most important wetlands in Europe, Danube Delta (the second as size inEurope).

4. Land cover

5. Land use

6. Throughout history human beings have made use of the land in many different ways, for the supply of food, to build homes or create art. The technical and cultural development of Romanian civilisation has seen human settlements develop from a dependency on food supply sources to almost total freedom from any constraints on location. Since antiquity, competition between farming land and forests has created contrasts in the countryside, dictated by the ups and downs of history: wars, famines, epidemics, population increases and taxation. Until present, in Romania, we can say that the spatial development of land was largely following the pattern of demographic changes the human organizational forms.

7. Demographic changes Over the last century, major changes has taking place under the combined effect of technical progress and developments in agricultural policies. The process of industrialization was taking place in the same time with two major historical events for Romania: the independence war from 1877 and the Union of Romanian provinces from 1918. After the Second World War Romania pass trough a series of process: nationalization and collectivization during the communist period and liberalization after 1989’revolution. These events are represented by statistical data referring the major changes between rural and urban population.

8. Demographic changes • 12951 villages • 2854 communes in which are living 44,8% from total population • 319 cities in which are living 55,2% from total population • Main reasons for decreasing rural population: • until 1950 – world war, forced exiles, etc. • - 1951-1953 – rebuilding of the industrial structure • 1954-1962 – forced collectivization, new fabrics in the cities • 1963-1970 – establishment of the counties with bigger allocations • 1971-1989 – forced development of heavy industries in urban areas • after 1989 - lack of jobs in rural area, international migration

9. Human organizational forms trough history that modified the landscape of today: the first form of organization in our country was “The village”, defined like an association of family farms organized on a defined territory that was common propriety. this kind of organization remained until the second half of XIX century when where created trough law “administrative communes” like a consequence of the new form of organization was created “the big land propriety” that basically contained from 1 to 5 villages and in which agricultural land was split between peasants after the agrarian reforms from 1864 and 1921 was created “peasant land propriety”, that represented the base for compaction of land and introduction of modern agriculture starting with year 1945 where created the “agricultural cooperatives of production”, that basically limited the private propriety under 1/3 ha after 1991, reappearance of individual land propriety under 10 ha leaded to reborn of an agrarian landscape characteristic of Romania in XIX century. In this way, Romanian rural, like it evolved after collectivization, point out, in the first way, an agrarian landscape with different utilizations and plots of land, and with certain types of production specific to different relief zones. Just after 2000 was restored the proprieties of 50 ha arable land and 30 ha forestry But despite of the historical changes, the villages and communes developed after their own rules, modeling the entire rural space: - The commune contain several villages, and the center is in the bigger of them- The majority of villages have an homogenous population grouped in families, clans and neighborhoods that: know each odder, have the same way of thinking, occupations, religion and culture. Even today almost half of the population from a village is related, that create the feeling of community despite the social position

10. If we take in consideration the research in the field of rural sociology and Romanian language, we may observe how many communes preserved until 50% of community heritage. Next with this, we have to take in consideration the influences from the different country and civilization. All this influences make part now from our cultural heritage and are deep integrated in the rural landscapes.

11. If we take in consideration the other influences of history on the actual landscape we may put on the map: the religious diversification, the archeological monuments, etc.

12. If we take in consideration the location and territorial distribution of villages and communes in the present:The majority of the communes are located: along rivers; in broad-leaved areas; in piedmont, hill and plain areas

13. The majority of the communes contains until 25 villages. 22% have under 2000 people; 62% have between 2000 and 5000. The majority of villages have under 800-1000 people

14. If we take in consideration the occupational specificity for different rural areas results:> rural areas with agriculture based on individual farms (19,7%) > rural areas with concentrate habitat and agricultural specialization tendency (4,6%) > rural space with medium settlements and diversify economy (21,8%) > rural areas from disadvantageous zones and low agricultural economy (17,0%) > rural areas with old and subsistence economy (18,2%)> rural areas with low population and associative and commercial agricultural economy (9,2%) > plain rural areas, very low populated but with good settlements and associative economy (9,5%)

15. Along roads Around cities Direction of urban development Inside rural areas

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