Farmers who are engaged in the cultivation of sunflowers are facing serious difficulties this year due to the extremely poor harvest. In some cases, yields have fallen by almost half compared to previous years, raising fears of another rise in oil prices on the market.
The situation in the Montana village of Gabrovitsa is particularly alarming, where farmers are reporting extremely low results from their crops. "You could say that this year is tragic in terms of sunflower yields – maybe by 45% they are lower compared to the previous year", says Zornitsa Borisova, a farmer from the village, in an interview for bTV. With an average yield of about 250 kilograms per hectare in 2022, farmers in the region now enjoy only 150 kilograms.
Most producers prefer to keep their production because the current purchase prices of sunflowers are too low and do not cover their costs. “In any case, it will affect the price of oil, and I see at the moment a tendency of a slight increase in oil, which we do not feel quite tangibly in our pockets, but the oil goes up by ten cents every week,”, commented Borisova.< /p>
The main factors that led to the poor harvest are the hot and dry summer, as well as the lack of opportunities to irrigate the sown areas. Despite the difficulties, farmers hope that market conditions will stabilize.
The topic was also discussed in the bTV studio by Dimitar Margaritov, former chairman of the Commission for Consumer Protection. He stressed that the poor results of the harvest will lead not only to a quantitative but also to a qualitative deterioration of the raw material, which will inevitably have an impact on oil prices. According to Margaritov, there is also a danger of speculative price increases, which would deal a serious blow to consumers.