Nearly 90% of the vegetables and fruits sold on the Bulgarian market are imported and the local produce was brought down to its knees, Executive Director of Bulgarian Association of the Fruit and Vegetables Producer Organizations Chavdar Marinov told Radio Bulgaria. According to the national statistics, from January until October 2018 the imports of vegetables to Bulgaria increased 11.7% year on year to 226.700 tons and imports of fruits went up by 9.4% to 255.300 tons. 

Meanwhile, production volumes in Bulgaria’s agriculture fell with 2%, although the Bulgarian farmers received subsidies worth EUR 1.3 billion last year. Over 50% of the subsidies were allotted by EU funds and the rest are paid by the state budget, Bulgaria’s Minister of Agriculture and Food Rumen Porozhanov announced.

Apparently the Bulgarian agricultural sector is not in a very good condition and this is felt by every Bulgarian consumer who buys food products. Meager quantities of Bulgarian eggs, fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy products are sold in the Bulgarian shops and the rest of the food comes mainly from Turkey, Greece, Poland, Serbia, Greece and North Macedonia.

The Bulgarian agriculture forms nearly 5% of the country’s gross domestic product. Thirty years ago Bulgaria exported food products to all countries from the socialist bloc. After the transition from communism to democracy, the Bulgarian agriculture went under many reforms. Unfortunately, none of them yielded the expected positive results. The Bulgarians got back their land which was forcibly nationalized during the communist regime. However, the new farmers became owners of small pieces of land, usually less than 1 hectare, and were not able to support their families, let alone compete with their produce on the Bulgarian and the foreign markets. As a result, many young Bulgarians left the villages and emigrated in the big cities and abroad in search of a better life. The Bulgarian villages are now populated mainly with pensioners. Only grain producers managed to a certain extent to make the necessary modernization and consolidate into bigger, modern and more adaptive companies which exports grain to Europe and other continents quite successfully. Cultivation of essential oil crops such as oil-yielding rose and lavender also remains strong and now Bulgaria is one of the world’s biggest producers of essential oils. This country is also the biggest producer of herbs and spices in the European Union. According to data of Eurostat, a total of 81,000 tons of aromatic and medicinal plants and spices were grown in Bulgaria in 2017.

Bulgaria has strong traditions in agriculture and was considered a highly developed agrarian country several decades ago. Now things are different. Neither the wonderful natural conditions, nor the financial subsidies allotted under the EU common agricultural policy contribute to the development of the agricultural sector in Bulgaria. The incomes of the Bulgarian farmers fell due to the lower production volumes and sales. According to data of the National Statistical Institute, their revenues fell with 14.8% in 2018, whereas incomes in other sectors of the national economy rose with over 7%. In other words, Bulgarian agriculture is a sector with low productivity and added value which affects investor interest. There are no signs of a positive development in the sector and even organic farming, which is considered promising and attractive, forms only 5% of the whole production volumes in the sector. Meanwhile consumption of imported fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy products has increased.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov