Payments to farmers, set for the next three to four months in the Indicative Schedule for Campaign 2025, in the amount of over 550 million euros, will be withdrawn earlier. This was stated by the Minister of Agriculture and Food Ivan Hristanov at a briefing at the Council of Ministers. He announced that the first tranche had already been disbursed at the beginning of the week, with 43 thousand farmers receiving nearly 80 million euros. Minister Hristanov pointed out that there are no prerequisites for an increase in food prices, but there are prerequisites for a decrease in farmers' incomes due to an increase in fuel and nitrogen fertilizer prices. “All these factors lead to a higher cost price. In the last week, the government has taken several measures. The first of them is about liquidity, because what is more dangerous than high fuel or fertilizer prices is the lack of liquidity in the sector“, explained the Minister of Agriculture. He added that in addition to the payments withdrawn in a shorter period of time, an increase in the compensation for the excise duty on fuels is also planned in 2025 with an additional resource of 27 million euros. According to him, the talks are currently going in a positive direction.
He also recalled the stated position of our country regarding milk prices during the meeting of the Council of Ministers of Agriculture and Fisheries in Brussels, as well as at the meeting of the Visegrad Four last week. “Europe must come up with a unified position regarding milk prices. It was extremely striking that Bulgaria is the only country in which, on the one hand, there is a serious collapse in the purchase price of raw quality milk, and on the other hand, prices in stores are high“, emphasized Minister Hristanov. He was categorical that “a field“ for better prices for farmers' purchased milk is available.
In front of the media, the Minister of Agriculture announced that inspections for the use of public resources continue. “By the end of this week, we will submit three signals to the Ministry of Interior for potential abuses in Irrigation Systems for quite large sizes. This is not just some state-owned company, but an element of the national critical infrastructure that concerns water, and hence food security“, added Hristanov. He specified that unfortunately, the inspections of both public procurements, which are for a total of nearly 330 million leva, show negative results. “Substitution tables in which some costs are replaced by other costs, inflated quantities and prices, lack of control over implementation and sufficient justification of specific costs. We will submit all these elements to the Ministry of Interior in the coming days. Most likely, next week we will also have many signals in this direction“, Minister Hristanov also said.
Regarding the launched campaign “Clean Food“ between the Ministry of Agriculture, the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency and the Ministry of Interior, he summarized the latest results. “The enterprise in Montana, which supplied food to schools and kindergartens in Vratsa, and which the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency inspectors had to close. Similar conditions were also found in the Lovech region, where we see waste flowing into water bodies, or in Pleven, where several tons of expired meat were confiscated from a store. In this regard, we continue to actively work to restore the trust of Bulgarian citizens in the institutions and the food they put on their tables,“ Minister Hristanov was categorical.