The protests initiated in the town of Gotse Delchev on 12 December by tobacco growers against low purchase prices and other problems in the sector, have for the time being been called off. The initial price of the raw material – BGN 6 per kg. – quickly plummeted to BGN 3.80, says Arben Mimenov, Chair of the Union of Oriental Tobacco Growers. Bulgaria and the neighbouring countries - Turkey, Greece and Macedonia turn out three quarters of the most aromatic oriental tobacco in the world. This year’s is a bumper harvest and there is overproduction even though the humidity – 5 times higher than usual – spoilt the quality of the tobacco. This in turn brought the price of this raw material down, as did the bad regulation in the sector, said for Radio Bulgaria Tsvetan Filev, Chair of the National Association of Tobacco Growers. The contracts for the purchase of tobacco concluded so far have no practical legal value, tobacco growers say. Whereas the deliberate delay in buying out the tobacco will degrade its quality and hence bring down its price.

The announcement there would be amendments to the tobacco act that would bring more security for everyone down the line had the effect of stopping the protests for now – tobacco growers had planned to block off Bulgaria’s Southern and Northern border. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, the amendments under discussion seek to find a balance between the now existing full liberalization and the one-time regulation of the market. Two registers are to be drawn up – one of tobacco growers and the other of tobacco merchants.

“We shall be able to create a “chamber of tobacco” as a supra-sector body whereby we shall help tobacco growers, merchants and processors regulate relations with one other preventively, create cut-and-dry rules instead of waiting for problems to occur during the purchasing of the raw material,” says Mr. Filev. “Independent expert commissions will be set up to act as arbiter in determining tobacco quality. We want to be able to conclude preliminary contracts for the purchase of the raw material that would have legal value and would envisage sanctions for the default party.”

The other two demands raised by tobacco growers look like being met too:

“The second demand is to have the same sums allocated for the national tobacco top-up payment scheme enshrined in budget 2015 as in 2014 – BGN 107 million – and to have the money paid out no later than end March 2015. This is the period when we start the next tobacco growing cycle. There is a certain amount of progress with regard to our third demand – that the minimum insured income thresholds should not be raised as planned from BGN 240 to 420. After difficult negotiations we reached verbal agreement with the administration for this threshold to reach a ceiling of BGN 300. This is a step forward and a gradual movement towards a higher insured income threshold which will mean higher retirement pensions for self-insured tobacco growers.”

The amendments to the act envisage the solution of another pressing problem – the trend towards a deterioration of the quality of the oriental tobacco grown, the result of lax control of the seeds used. And the responsibility for this unequivocally rests with the only officially registered body in the country – The Executive Agency for Plant Variety Testing, Approbation and Seed Control.

English Milena Daynova