ANALYSIS OF ROMANIAN FARMERS TRADING BEHAVIOUR IN THE COMMODITIES EXCHANGE UNCERTAINTY CAUSED BY CLIMATE CHANGE, COVID-19 PANDEMIC AND EXTERNAL MARKET CHANGES.

Starting with the summer of 2020, the farms inputs prices, especially for diesel, seeds, fertilizers and pesticides as well as of grains (cereals and oilseeds) started fluctuating excessively. This phenomenon caused great uncertainty in farmers economic activity, especially for the crop farms that are bulk selling all their products to traders. The uncertainty was primarily caused by the overlap of several factors, some of which were more predictable and some of which took everyone by surprise and caused panic and volatility on the stock markets. The unfortunate events sequence began in early 2020, with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that caused disruptions in supply chains, import-export bans and lockdowns that reduced the consumption of agri-food products in the HORECA industry. For Romanian farmers, the disturbance created by the pandemic also overlapped with the severe drought that affected production levels in 2020 and 2022, as well as with the hostilities in the region which started at the end of February 2022, and led to the agricultural inputs excessive price increase and high volatility on the commodities exchange. In this sequence of unfortunate events, the farmers' decision regarding the stored grains volumes, inputs purchasing timing and grains selling timing, made a major difference for their business' financial stability and profitability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]