Ever. Here at the foot of the cup avians in the transylvanian heartland capitalism has taken root with a vengeance. For many its a blessing for peasant farmer and livestock owner it was videoed gaggle its a curse. Unlike most and remains has not sought his fortune abroad or in one of the countrys betting urban areas he wants to breed animals in romania in transylvania in his home village of brilliance. In the gobi learn to love. I was still a child maybe seven or eight years old when my grandfather gave me a sheep and a lamb. I was delighted i finished school and immediately started breeding animals. I was hoping to set up my own business to build a livestock farm a future. But its getting harder and harder. For five years now a video has been expanding his head he now owns one hundred fifty feet as well as thirty eight dogs and two dont lease its a small fortune. But he doesnt fear his animals as capital. Since they introduced subsidies Livestock Farmers get ripped off while others get money for their land. Theres a lot of shady business going on. It would have been better if theyd given us subsidies or a fixed price for a while. In the past there were no subsidies and farmers to justify and the wool is paid for there was demand for milk and cheese today nothing works for the past two or three years weve only had just enough to survive. His Business Needs more pasture land to be economically viable. For to put in there is very little land left in communal ownership and too many animals and land that belongs to the corporative is sold off by the Privatisation Agency several thousand hectors end up in the hands of just one owner. Farm land is a worthwhile investment a rapid increase in value and a you subsidies with two hundred fifty to three hundred euros per head to pay year guaranteed. And there are there you might like animals thats why i started working with them you cant breed animals if you dont have a heart for them. The tourist resort just a few kilometers away. Its an impressive operation with a trout farm hotel and restaurant that seats a thousand. From transylvania as ethnic german population he was born here emigrated and then returned fifteen years ago now he invests in land if your Software Engineer im a Software Engineer i am from the profits of my Software Company and passed in things that i enjoy from the virtual into the real world so to speak i try to make a difference by farming trout before i bought land even though i dont know anything about animals on me now do i realize i need stables veterinarians good breeding animals so gradually i began to develop a none the hard way. The. Grazing land was traditionally Communal Land here that changed with remaining as a session to the european union. Shepherds virtually rule the land and to a certain extent to being able to make their own laws and then fifteen years ago i had this idea of. The Tourism Business so if i bought the land i could at least push the shepherds as far out as possible so that my visitors and i can enjoy this beautiful countryside. Here because in a tour of guinness and. Millis restaurant caters to bus loads of tourists from germany and abroad no one he says wants to hear bleating sheep. When the financial crisis hit remain here in two thousand and seven eight local started selling their land simply because in the long run it wasnt viable for them to keep it at that time i was able to buy land first of all you could say i pouched and i was offered more land than i had money to buy. A little for Goodness Sake of. In the meantime Martin Miller has acquired around two hundred thousand hectares approximately the area of four thousand football pitches and hes not the only one. Many investors have discovered remain in Agricultural Land is a profitable investment. As an internet in the face but ive read stories about land grabbing on the internet and on facebook i also know many examples from the west and south of romania where hundreds of hectares of Agricultural Land have been bought by Foreign Companies which i actually dont think is a bad thing. As long as its used. At the moment fifty percent of land in romania is unused i repeat unused or in good notes does it. Thats a much cited figure that has never been officially confirmed as of the even heard one over there you can hear the shepherd not my neighbor and the way the sheep are bleating it sounds like they love to be in this pasture because the grass is juicy here is that chef its not that fond of me as if lottie has to follow the rules now. And the e. U. Regulations grazing land is not classified as a pastor its an asset shepards have to rent the land owners receive subsidies but only if the land is used for grazing. Rumania had five million Small Farmers when it joined the e. U. Ten years ago nearly a third of the population lived on its own land in a state of poverty by western standards it was enough to get by but there was no commercial gain. Despite pledges by brussels that it wants to promote small scale farming the remaining governments declared aim is to consolidate Agricultural Production into larger units. A political strategy to help the rural population remains absent to this day. In rumania there are now only large scale land owners and the rural proletariat small Livestock Farmers like video are losing out against politics against the economy against the trained. Mohsen mill and now owns the land where video gaggles sheep once graced free of charge. Collects e. U. Subsidies and drain from a video out of the road was nothing you can do or say people sold on the land he didnt discover off the authorities he bought it and now he rented out because he isnt allowed to hold the land but its not grazed. And he doesnt have enough animals to keep the grass under control so we keep it clean. Don are still back there it has to be cleaned and grazed its monitored by satellite really because i believe the people and if he doesnt use the land for grazing hell lose the subsidy. The decline of the peasant farming economy is changing demographics speeding up a massive migration into the cities especially among young. Only those who have seen the sign of the times have a bright future. Martin miller the Software Engineer and land owner has become a large scale. His lines have to be graced in order to meet the requirements so he has a quiet and. Only set of produce made on his phone. What doesnt go straight to the table is sold inhouse over the counter. And. Theyre. In total we have about two hundred fifty angus cattle more than twelve hundred sheep about eight hundred goats pigs special. An ancient breed of domestic pig about one hundred twenty in all. And we also raise cameroon sheep for meat. So the angus cattle and i dont need them our land themselves. You know the combination of cattle sheep and buffalo is perfect for maintaining and improving pastor quality. Went. Martin miller is a businessman he cares about process optimization not animals he employs just for people to breed and care for his animals in fact its a family of four. This is a National Problem and restitution law people reclaimed farms confiscated from their families but they no longer have the ability to develop it with global competition the problem isnt our buffalo its that Foreign Companies like our flint dominate the romanian market more than fifty percent of the Dairy Products in a county and supermarket in romania are imported goods not from romania also. For small families colorful and is part of the problem regional farmers markets have been squeezed out by the german discounter there is no longer a market for regional products decline. When farmers quickly got their land back. Although it was an exciting time a promising trend that i observed as an outsider back. And i thought it was wonderful. You would see these pictures of dr cars with hooks attached to the top of the roof racks and the trunks were stuffed with bags of grain all with piglets or pigs and so on. That are full of readers and everyone was just happy to be able to cultivate their family land again. It was a natural return to their roots what really counts. Is what communism had not been able to destroy it was then destroyed by the preparation for a us session before. It and post a session by the Common Agricultural policy meir. This is trying to mobilize opposition to this ecologically controversial approach whereby Agricultural Companies work the land rather than farm this. That land grabbing by new investors is happening at a rapid pace. Its often unclear who is acquiring the land. There were these in the lead grabbers or various entities in them. There are Dutch Pension Fund arab sheiks who invest their money in holdings and of course simple smart individuals so. Theres one common denominator they all share they are all unscrupulous and have no values no moral. Terrorist fields shrubs bushes and even springs are being plowed over. And the resulting fields rapeseed all maize is grown primarily for the production of biofuel monoculture is replacing diversity. Here. So. What are you doing. Coloring the basement. To live out history in here and practice a stable agriculture but then another investor came from germany came and purchased. Money doesnt matter you can do it. So i mean he must be a man with a lot of money to just buy everything up. On the good positive for like you got the money from here because you know a lot of it also i think you didnt come with that much money. In they just bribe the mayor and everyone else around here. They still. Welcome Michael Holmes from the e. U. The e. U. Subsidy his first hundred hectares brought i dont know how many hundreds of thousands of euros. I said it was gone says people i dont know how the whole game works and i think you know already has machinery worth a Million Dollars hes laundering black money or blog going through subsidies to buy you know idea isnt exactly through subsidies those events. Best but theres no future here its battle obviously. Concerned feel speculation among. But one thing is visible. His field is surrounded by the field something. Even his access road was plowed. His match my field up there and the road the access road where was that. When. He was here four metres tall right here. I was looking here this is plowed. When the stones and then they wonder why they have a rose with so much monoculture to this day but the past two days Agro Industry for you irrational and heartless only one is all that matters. To centuries old Cultural Landscape is eroding under the use of open market policies not using pesticides or heavy machinery generated the biodiversity unique to the remain years cup and the mountains. Vicious to does not just use social media to organize resistance. He regularly meets up with fellow activists to discuss their experiences. They tell us who would have been or Martin Miller is expanding here in the south martin. He already has a trout farm and. Then from there he spread all over the old mallee and jason valley. Or to this school the park the car towns now she thought. So here is here and here in our area we have the other guy who bought all the land between. As well as all the adjoining valleys and today maybe. Seeing is. The group wants to mobilize rumanians five million small scale farming is. The kind more. Fun and the problem is romania small scale farmers do not know each other one were scattered all over romania and thats the challenge faced by initiatives and associations like ours. Were sending out a signal to say were here with keep doing peasant farming has a viable future it needs to be saved its sustainable get it get it at the veteran its value is an appreciator thing everywhere in the west or in the developed world. But theyve lost. They want it back. And were throwing it away. For two days mario has just returned from france where you looked at small family farms and they grassroots movements. All over. Theyre always talking about the power of small scale farming and its already met with a response abroad. Trade unions mergers and they even have the power to change laws in france. Schemed. On the other hand in romania were barely scratching the surface. About the subject me because we want to make a difference. Others look at us as if we come from another planet. That i get that. Many locals have given up and sold their land. Their own farms were often too small to turn them into economically viable businesses and they had no money to acquire additional land. Fertile ground for land grab. If the wool is good quality and from a good breed you get twelve cents per kilo. Sheep with one and a half to two. You have a quarter kilo of waste but thats not figured into the equation. If you dont like the price youre left sitting on your. Corinas. Direct custom is such as textile mills have disappeared from the region today middle men set the prices. The e. U. Has funding programs for young entrepreneurs but the paperwork alone can be overwhelming for. Applications for animal projects a very difficult the bureaucracy is far too complicated its hopeless. Every time. Ive already tried. Your qualifications but it doesnt matter at some point i couldnt get any further now i try twice it came to nothing you have to spend a lot of money but you never know if its going to pay off. Sure. There are consultants who can help Small Farmers with the highly complicated subsidy application process but they charge ten percent of the sum being applied for regardless of whether the application is approved or not. Twenty five year old a video still lives with his parents his father was a long haul truck driver for years and knows every corner of europe nevertheless he still wants to live here in transylvania in romania. The family eats almost exclusively homegrown food. Not out of ideological conviction but because it has always been that way because it tastes better. The fast he bacon the sausage the eggs everything is homemade. Including the traditional plum schnapps. Videos father has been mayor for a year he sees both sides of the issue. I generally are when we have a problem in romania where small and medium sized farmers are being strangled by the huge farmers the large scale investors have the financial means to buy land and a small scale farmers get nothing as a community we just dont have any land to lease theres nothing left not a single square metre away is the body. Is about to visit he only survives because we support him because his father invested the money he earned as a truck driver in sheep farming he could never support a family of his own never. In the fullness establishing ministry of celts from the thirteenth century mass is still set in germany. For fifteen years Martin Miller has been the parishes most prominent member he married here his children were baptized here. He is well respected and during the service is allowed to sit in the pew reserved for church dignitaries. The one thousand nine hundred exodus of transylvania as ethnic germans to nearly unified germany sparked a rapid decline of an eight hundred year old culture. Houses villages and churches were left to decay. The teachers house was also ruined. Martin miller founded its renovation so it could be used as a community center. Thereby this is another way we contribute to the Community Good for you and get the Community Uses it. Its part of the deal. But the community can use it for all their festivals. Even. Dd because those who complain are not Small Farmers at all clear people who have regained land to which they have no relationship. Their land was taken away from their families in the one nine hundred fifty s. As a kind of collectivization drive and they move to work in factories or someplace else but they never work the land. And when i got the land back they knew nothing about it and i had to pay tax they said get me out of here. And when mother bought the land of course some people could have gotten in cheaper and sold it for more its the same everywhere a grass is greener in some ways and that nigel. Martyn miller plans to expand even further but his investment has already paid off prices have tripled over the last ten years. And you have to hit i feel like a pioneer who is transforming this land into farming. That in the areas where ive linked my parcels together i can prove that there are no good pastures. It doesnt bother me if im called a land grab. Walk and im bringing order to the Land Registry office deflection is key but im clearing and developing the land with one supports ive posted its value and of course i produce at least twice as much with the twenty percent of land i bought from the community as the whole community of villagers or peasant farmers produces with the remaining eighty percent of land clarified where land becomes a commodity theres more at stake than money the local farming economy is dying an inevitable death but a video is defiant showing the new class you know all this work still gives us pleasure otherwise we wouldnt do it any more but you dont do it if you dont have fun so we keep going on and when i mean we wont die of hunger we can at least produce the food we need for ourselves a piece of meat no its just hard to earn money but maybe things will improve some day in the future negative one. What they were initially with on a. Small farm still exist in romania protecting their heritage from investment heavyweights should be the cornerstone of an Agricultural Policy that is modern and sustainable. Your imax this weeks highlights. Dancing in the wind. Indoor sky diving is the new trend. Living without a roof a very special kind of hotel experience. Eating in heaven gourmet cuisine for those who arent scared of heights. Youre already next d. W. One hundred million tons of sand. Devastating everything in it. With deadly consequences. To storms because of global menace. Once they start theres no stopping them. The storm in forty five minutes on t w. The dangerous battle for images. Five women. Five exceptional stories Case Scenario i want to look at the front tomorrow morning maybe nothing more easy one calling more photography dramatic pictures from the frontlines capturing street full moments in time and even risking death. She gave her life to tell the stories of people who ended up killing. Women or photographers starting may third on t w. I theyre welcome to your max highlights the best of european lifestyle and culture this week is whats coming up. Pine a company