--- title: "Agribusiness expert: Farmers require practical knowledge to adapt to climate change" url: https://radiomoldova.md/p/84499/agribusiness-expert-farmers-require-practical-knowledge-to-adapt-to-climate-change published: 2026-09-06T10:16:00Z language: en author: "Daniela Gherman" section: "Economic" source: radiomoldova.md --- # Agribusiness expert: Farmers require practical knowledge to adapt to climate change > Agriculture in the Republic of Moldova requires a change in approach. This includes how farmers manage their businesses, cultivate the soil, and select technologies, seeds, and crops to adapt to climate change and increasing drought. Agribusiness and agricultural economics expert Andrei Zbancă says that farmers need practical knowledge, technologies suited to local conditions, and an agricultural system focused on moisture conservation and crop rotation. ![imagine simbol](https://storage.radiomoldova.md/images/b74f465f-f382-4d01-88d8-efb3b6b28784.jpg) *Sursa: imagine simbol* Agriculture in the Republic of Moldova requires a change in approach. This includes how farmers manage their businesses, cultivate the soil, and select technologies, seeds, and crops to adapt to climate change and increasing drought. Agribusiness and agricultural economics expert Andrei Zbancă says that farmers need practical knowledge, technologies suited to local conditions, and an agricultural system focused on moisture conservation and crop rotation. In an interview for the “Zi de Zi” show on Radio Moldova, Andrei Zbancă stated that the first step to increasing the climate resilience of agriculture is to change the way farmers view their activity. *“First of all, the farmer’s approach must be changed; it doesn’t matter whether it’s big or small, it is necessary to change the farmer’s approach to the agricultural business”,*said the expert. According to Zbancă, agriculture has become increasingly complex under climate change, and methods used a decade ago are no longer necessarily suitable for current conditions. Farmers must develop their skills and adapt technologies to new realities. *“What was 10-15 years ago is now not suitable and is not good”,*he said. The expert believes that the change must also target attitudes towards the soil and how it is worked, as well as the choice of agricultural technologies. Practices based on successive trials without a clear strategy are no longer sufficient, and measures must be applied within a coherent system. One of the main problems identified by Andrei Zbancă is the insufficient level of farmers' practical knowledge. He argues that there is a need for an agricultural extension service or a state mechanism to provide farmers with applied information on climate change adaptation. *“The problem is that we need to increase the level of knowledge of farmers, and not theoretical knowledge, but applied or practical knowledge,”* said the expert. In this context, Zbancă gave the example of corn cultivation in the south of the country. He reported that he met a farmer who used a plant density of 62,000 plants per hectare, a norm he considers inappropriate for the current humidity conditions in the region. According to the expert, excessively high density intensifies competition among plants for available water and can affect the harvest. *"We alone, from the start, by increasing the density of corn per hectare, create problems during the exploitation period",*he explained. Another important direction is the gradual transition from conventional to conservative agriculture. Reducing interventions in the soil, in the expert's opinion, would help preserve soil moisture and reduce the effects of drought. *"Some of us would do well to think about gradually switching to conservative agriculture"*, said Andrei Zbancă, specifying that *"minimum tillage or minimum soil disturbance allows us to preserve moisture in the soil"*. The expert also draws attention to the problem of crop rotation. In his opinion, sustainable agriculture is difficult to achieve when farmers rely on a small number of crops. An example is sunflower, which occupies a significant share in crop rotation due to its profitability. In the Republic of Moldova, sunflowers are grown in the same area every two to three years. However, Zbancă warns that this practice can have consequences for the productivity of the land, because sunflowers do not always leave favorable conditions for the next crop. *“Once we have 30% of sunflowers in rotation, next year, from 30 hectares we do not expect great results”*, he said. Seed material also plays an important role in adapting agriculture to climate change. The expert says that farmers do not always pay enough attention to seed quality and recommends checking germination and energy capacity, as well as using appropriate breeding categories. *“It is necessary to understand that 15-20% of the harvest is seed material. For this reason, it is necessary to focus on seeds”*, Zbancă said. At the same time, he believes that the Republic of Moldova should pay greater attention to developing agricultural genetics adapted to local conditions. Imported seeds are usually produced for the agroclimatic conditions of the regions where they are developed, which does not guarantee the same adaptation in the Republic of Moldova. *"It would be good for us to be able to do genetics in the Republic of Moldova, because once the seed is produced in the Republic of Moldova, it has a much better genetic resistance or adaptation to the conditions in the Republic of Moldova from the start"*, the expert concluded. [Audio: https://trm.blob.core.windows.net/photos/bde4cfa9-28c0-48a0-b35e-c316beff1859.jpg](https://original.trm.md/video/definst/MP4:2026/9/5/03-09-26-Gherman-AGRICULTURA-REZILIENTAPR.m4a/playlist.m3u8)