Bulgaria Newsflash Week 9, 2022
Happy 1st of March, happy Baba Marta!
Today, everyone in Bulgaria exchanges good wishes and martenitsas: red-and-white threads as a symbol of the coming spring.
Enjoy the 1 March edition of Bulgarian Agri Newsflash!
Bulgaria proposes 60% national co-financing for rural development projects
The Agriculture Ministry proposes 60% of national co-financing for rural development in the draft National Strategic Plan through which the common agricultural policy (CAP) for 2023-2027 will be implemented in Bulgaria, said Agriculture Minister Ivan Ivanov. He said that as a result of Brexit and the reduction of the total CAP budget, as well as after the adoption of the transitional regulation, the budget for Bulgaria in the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) in 2023-2027 is slashed by more than a half: to EUR 1.4 billion from the current 3.1 billion for 2014-2022.
On an annual basis, funding for farmers will be increased by 46% in the new period. The 2014-2022 budget is EUR 3,795,425,418 of public funds for 11 years (with a period of implementation ending in 2025) or EUR 345,038,674 per year. The budget for agriculture in 2023-2027 is set at EUR 3,527,033,050 of public funds for seven years (with period of implementation ending in 2029) or EUR 503,861,864 per year, which is an increase by EUR 158,823,190 or 46%. “It is a huge difference. The draft that is about to be submitted to the European Commission, we seek to make sure Bulgarian producers are competitive to their peers elsewhere in Europe,” Minister Ivanov commented.
BGN 15 mln for fruit and vegetable markets
The Bulgarian National Recovery and Resilience Plan has BGN 15 million in investment in facilities for preparation for sale on the market of fruits and storage of fruit and vegetables, Agrozona reports. It will be part of two key projects in the agriculture sector, that are included in the recovery and resilience plan after it was revised by the new government. The first project is for digitalization of the processes from the farm to the table and the second is for setting up a fund for encouraging a technological and environmental transition in agriculture. It is the latter project that includes the investment for building markets for direct sale of produce, which seeks to shorten the supply chains. The future fund will total BGN 437.4 million. The project will be implemented until 2025.
Area in organic farming in Bulgaria increased three-fold in 2012-2020
The area in organic farming in Bulgaria increased three-fold in 2012-2020, reports Investor. According to Eurpostat figures, areas in organic farming in Bulgaria reached 116,253 ha at the end of 2020, up from 39,138 ha in 2012. Despite the increase, Bulgaria remains among the five countries with the smallest share of organic farming (less than 5% of all farmed area).
Two new Bulgarian tomato varieties to be registered in 2022-02-27
The Maritsa Institute of Vegetable Crops, in partnership with the Centre for Plant System Biology and Biotechnology, are planning to register two new tomato varieties with excellent taste, high resilience and good productivity, reports the Agroplovdiv e-zine. The experts are analyzing a collection of 150 tomato and pepper selection lines before creating lines and hybrids that bring together the taste of traditional Bulgarian vegetables with resilience to diseases and increased output and income for farmers. Bulgarian vegetables are known for their supreme taste but many producers have given up growing them because, unfortunately, most lack genes for resilience to diseases.
Bulgarian honey producers wins funding for production of creamed honey
A new workshop for secondary processing of bee honey into creamed honey according to the Dyce method will be built in the northeastern village of Orlova Mogila in Dobrich municipality with EU funding, reports Balgarski Fermer weekly. This method is based on control or crystallization and results in soft and silky honey that is easy to spread on bread.