The cold spring and winds complicated the start of the rose picking campaign, and farmers admit that they are worried not only about the weather, but also about economic pressure. The cheaper product from other countries is literally scorching the market for our rose oil, reports bTV.
Mid-May is traditionally the time for the most beautiful and fragrant campaign in our country - rose picking. This year, farmers from the Rose Valley are welcoming the start of the campaign with anxiety. The vagaries of nature and low temperatures delay flowering, and hurricane winds further complicate the situation in the field.
„The campaign started a week ago, on May 14-15. It is not good for the oil-producing rose. The temperatures are low, they cannot bloom, the roses cannot feed normally. There was a hurricane wind. As you can see, it turned out like this in many places - the roses are lying down, and the problem is that it also makes picking more difficult. We can't go row by row to fix the plantings, to straighten them. But the campaign will still be difficult“, says Petar Simeonov, a rose grower.
However, the problems do not stop with the bad weather. For years, the industry has been sounding the alarm about the lack of security in purchasing raw materials and the shortage of labor, which becomes critical when the weather suddenly warms up.
The real test for farmers is yet to come with the mass flowering of the areas, for which hundreds of pickers are needed per day.
“The problem will most likely come when it gets a little warmer, the temperatures rise to 24-25 degrees. We can already see that there is a fairly prepared bud of 60-70% and this thing will last about a week to 10 days - so, a simultaneous flowering in most regions. And then we have to concentrate a lot of people so that we can pick the flower, so that it reaches a normal color, fresh color to the distilleries, to process it“, Simeonov points out.
Plantations and total yield are drastically decreasing, as is the demand for native oil. Bulgarian rose oil, although of proven quality, is starting to lose ground on international markets.
The reason is purely economic - its high cost makes it difficult to compete on the market at the expense of cheaper exports to other countries.
“For us as rose growers, the price is just like that &ndquo; too high jumps up, and international companies... There are countries that also produce rose oil, and their quality is not so bad anymore. And we have another problem - import of foreign oil into Bulgaria. We have said it many times. We hope... And we don't know what to hope for anymore, but the interest of processors in the rose flower has really cooled down," Simeonov commented.
Without urgent strategic changes, state subsidization of the entire chain and a real inventory of the areas, there is a serious risk that the emblem of Bulgaria will disappear in a few years and become simply an attraction for tourists.