46. One Reason Why People Live in Villages

One large difference between Moldova and the United States is where people live. In the US independence is very important. Some people really enjoy living in the country, even if they are not farmers. In Moldova, everyone lives in a village or city. I do not necessarily believe people do not want to live in the country, but because most people do not have cars and must rely on public transportation it would not be smart to live away from other people.

I was explaining to a Moldovan how I have an uncle that lives 10 minute drive away from the nearest village. From their experience in Moldova, it just did not seem to make any sense to live that far outside of a village or that far away from people. I explained that 30 minute drive from the nearest town was pretty far in Ohio, but in states like Nebraska and the Dakotas distances could be even further. In the US it is possible to get electricity and even city water and live away from the city.

In Moldova, from my knowledge, everyone lives in a village or city. The benefits include electricity, sometimes running ‘city water’ and safety of being close to other people. Then outside of the village, is the farmland. In my village, in the morning and evening, a large dump truck and small bus will pick people up in the village and drive around the farmland surrounding the village so that people can get to their farm land because few people have transportation. In my village, I would say that 50% of the families a vehicle, but that is just a guess. There are not a lot of tractors, but there is not a lot of land per farmer either, so many help each other out. My host father has a tractor and he has helped quite a few neighbors and usually only accepts a little gas or a glass of wine as payment.

In this country people covet their land and homes. As I understand it, people do not sell homes, property or farmland very often. So farms are pretty small because it is expensive and unlikely that others will sell their farmland. When I told them that my family has 60 acres of farmland around our house they thought I had all the land I needed and was very large. But in the US, 60 acres would be very difficult to make a living on when farming grains.

My host father in Moldova is a full time natural gas engineer for the village and also has 1.2 acres of farmland. I have heard of farmers who have 25 acres and I am sure there are larger farms out there. Currently I do not know what the average farm size in Moldova. 16% of the Moldova’s GDP is from Agriculture, it is 1.2% in the US. 40.6% of the workforce in Moldova is employed by the agricultural industry and around 2% in the US.