Livestock breeders from the Plovdiv village of Drangovo warn that over 2,000 thousand animals are in distress due to the refusal of "Irrigation systems" ; to feed the reservoir from which the flocks drink.
Farmers, on the other hand, complain that they receive insufficient water to irrigate corn.
Biser Stambolov raises about 1500 sheep. He holds a micro-dam on lease, which he uses for drinking water. For two months, the water has been below the sanitary minimum.
"I want to save the animals. As well as fellow animals. We have about 2,000 animals, sheep in the village and 80 cows, he says.
"The situation is dire. "Without water there is no way to carry out animal husbandry," says Dr. Georgi Zafirov, a veterinarian from the village of Drangovo.
The reservoir is filled by a pipe from "Irrigation Systems". The livestock breeder is puzzled why for two months, despite the availability of water in the surrounding dams, he was refused supply.
"There is currently one million cubic meters of water in the Dondukovo dam. Equalizer 5 is under the Dondukovo dam. It is currently almost full and water is coming from it to my dam. They just open the tube and it comes to me," commented Biser Stambolov, a livestock breeder in the village of Drangovo.
Lack of water is also a problem for grain producers. Georgi Tsanev from neighboring Otets Kirilovo claims that he paid for watering the blocks with corn, but that he received much less than the agreed water and his plants died.
"We have paid each other. They turned on our water for 4-5 days and then stopped it... At least to return the money to us. To this day there is none. The corn burned," Georgi Tsanev points out.
„There is currently a very large water deficit. The "Irrigation Systems" all colleagues who water corn and vegetables to stop watering due to lack of water”, commented Lyudmil Rabotov, Chairman of the Board of the Union of Grain Producers in Plovdiv.
From "Irrigation Systems" they answered us that the amount in the reservoirs has decreased and therefore it must be used very precisely.
"Dam "Dondukovo" at the moment, it is closed below 40% of its total volume and water is supplied from it for irrigation of agricultural crops. With critically low levels in the Plovdiv region, the "Pyasčnik" dams and "Domlyan", about which farmers are informed already at the beginning of the irrigation season. Water from them is supplied according to a previously prepared schedule”, it is said in their position.
Farmers claim that because of the drought, they will be forced to destroy their crops and sell them for silage.