One of the most expensive harvests in decades is expected by grain producers in our country. The high cost of production this year comes from the huge costs for fuels, seeds, fertilizers, increased wages, services and rents, bTV reported.
The harvest in Veliko Tarnovo and Pleven regions is going on at high costs for producers. Lyubomir Nikolaev has been a farmer for 30 years. On his farm in the Pleven village of Malchika this year, he has sown barley, wheat, sunflower and corn.
The harvest is good, but Lyubomir Nikolaev does not hide that his costs have doubled.
„Fuel and fertilizers have become very expensive - a lot. It did not affect us that much for the autumn campaign, but for the spring ones they will be very expensive. "The costs have doubled this year, according to my rough calculations," says Lyubomir Nikolaev, a grain producer.
“Our barley came out to about 970 kg/deca, and the wheat that we are still harvesting - about 850 kg. But the costs are really huge and it is simply very difficult“, says his daughter Vanessa Lyubomirova.
Farmers in Veliko Tarnovo region are also struggling to survive with high costs, and the purchase prices are even lower than last year's.
“The war - fertilizers really jumped a lot to such levels that some colleagues could not afford to fertilize. Everything is higher in agriculture, starting with fuel, going through fertilizers, going through seeds. Only the preparations, based on the previous year, were preserved“, commented Andrey Andreev, procurator at an agricultural company in the village of Kozarevets.
The producers are also dissatisfied with the prices at which the production is purchased.
“The purchase prices are exactly the same, even for 10 years - barley is 150 euros per ton, wheat is also 150 euros, it is offered by traders“, says Lyubomir Nikolaev.
The National Association of Grain Producers reports that in recent years the areas with grain crops have decreased by about 2 million decares.