The Great Depression led to a drop of 50% in industrial production and an increase of 300,000 persons in unemployment in Romania. By the early 1930s, the price of a quintal of wheat had fallen below the cost of harvesting it; agricultural goods, unprotected by any customs measures, were left to the discretion of international competition, which contributed to the decrease of their prices by 60–70% compared to those of 1928 and 1929.[3] Landowners went bankrupt and the peasants had little left to eat or pay taxes to the state. By 1932, some 2.5 million farmers had unpaid debts to banks, worth 52 billion lei.[4]