The big industrial players must not only wait for solutions from the state to solve the problem of high energy prices, but planned investments are needed to overcome this obstacle and become sustainable, said Radu Timiş, the owner of the Cris-Tim group.

“Regarding what is happening today with the price of energy, we cannot expect, as large or medium-sized players in the food industry, solutions only from the state. What we, our company, are doing: we already have two biogas stations, one biomass station of one MW each and now we are installing 5 MW of solar, so we have solved our energy problem, we are sustainable,” said Timiş, quoted by Agerpres.

He said that, in order to achieve this objective, new investments in digitalization are needed.

“But we should have woken up a few years ago, to invest in these things. There is talk of a food crisis for 4-5 years. How many anticipate what will happen? There are indeed problems all along the chain. Chemical fertilizer has become 2 -3 times more expensive and we have to use more, because the land’s poorer quality. If we don’t find a solution to use a natural fertilizer and something else, we will surely face starvation,” said the company representative.

According to Timiş, the Cris-Tim farms will not use chemical fertilizer at all from next year, and this year –  only in the proportion of 20%.

“Costs are falling and even in this great drought we had twice the grain production than a year before. That means there are solutions,” he emphasized.