The area of agricultural soil in Romania is about 14,800,000 ha, of which 9,420,000 ha is arable land.The residues from agricultural crops could be entirely utilised as fuel. Considering the possibilities of collecting and baling it in order to be transported the following types of agricultural waste could be utilised: straw, stems, corncobs, grapevine cords. From the industrial processing of industrial plants the waste that could be utilised as energy sources consists of sunflower seed husks, rape, hemp and flax dust.
For the waste from the agricultural exploitations and agricultural product industrial processing, as well as for the amount of waste re-utilised in agriculture (especially in livestock breeding) or as raw material, the 1997 crop was the reference one. From the point of view of the energy potential Romania’s territory was divided into the following seven regions: Dobroudja, Moldavia, the Carpathians (eastern, southern, the Apuseni), the Transylvania Plateau, the West Plain, the Subcarpathians and the South Plain.
Agricultural residues resulting from the harvest are used mainly in farms and animal feeding. The vegetable wastes gathering are costly but a compulsory step in order to prepare the land for the next harvest. They are not used yet in briquettes manufacturing. Lacking economical efficiency, the cleaning of fields of vegetable residues is made by setting them on fire with negative results for soil quality.
Area under grain cereals has the highest share (63%). The rest of surfaces are under fodder crops (14%) and technical (industrial) crops (13%). Taken together, these groups account for 90% of the entire cultivated area. This reflects the poor diversification of agricultural crops, requiring measures for the enlargement of agricultural crops, especially of those incorporating a high rate of technicality.
The surfaces cultivated with wheat and ryes have a decreasing trend especially because of the low price and low market request for these products. The average productions flowed according to the climate conditions.
The vegetal agriculture wastes have typical calorific value and humidity correlated with harvesting time. In table 15 some data obtained from various studies achieved by Agriculture Research Institute are shown.
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Vegetal agriculture waste
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Branches from fruit trees trimming
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The values from table 15 are average and can vary for different regions depending on climatic condition, the age of the plantations, etc.
