Agricultural protests begin. In the Plovdiv region, they are next to the village of Trud-Agro Plovdiv

2024-02-06 07:04:51

Today at 10:00 a.m., farmers’ protests begin with road blocks at 85 points in the country. Yesterday evening, the National Association of Grain Producers announced that it is ready to start them from today. A little later, all the organizations in the Bulgarian Agrarian Chamber declared their intention to participate.

Today the protests will last for two hours. Tomorrow – three, etc. until Monday, when a national open-ended agricultural protest will be announced.

In the Plovdiv region, the hotspot will be at the exit from the village of Trud in the direction of Plovdiv and the Trakia highway. The farmers told bTV that they intend to enter Plovdiv with heavy equipment, which means that Karlovsko Shosse will be completely or partially blocked.

The protest was announced because of the condition that grain producers must prove a financial loss for 2023 in order to receive support.

Farmers do not accept this condition, because according to the way farmers are taxed, they are always in profit even if they have huge expenses.

Another reason they turn an annual profit is the banks, which only lend to companies that can prove they are profitable.

The third reason is in the application for investment measures or for the modernization of the farm under the Recovery and Sustainability Plan. When applying, priority is given to companies that have higher turnover (profits) and accordingly for this purpose an amount must be declared to help the good evaluation of the project.

We recall that last night at an extraordinary briefing, Prime Minister Denkov expressed bewilderment as to why the grain producers did not accept the condition that the support would only be for those who declared a loss in 2023. He even pointed to figures from previous years, from which it can be seen that the total profit of the sector is growing – something that most farmers cannot explain.

This afternoon, a postponed meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, Food and Forestry will be held, which will be held in the building of the Ministry of Health. The deputies will present measures and actions to overcome the crisis in the sector, in response to the received requests from the non-governmental sector.