The purchase price of cow’s milk is down by 10 cents/l this month. It is bought from the big producers at 75-80 st./l, and for the small ones it has already fallen to 60 st./l. This is what the animal breeder Penny Hristova commented on Agri.BG.
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In her capacity as co-chair of the Institute of Women Farmers in Bulgaria, she also attended the meeting with Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev and the newly appointed Minister of Agriculture Georgi Takhov on April 24.
Asked whether there will be a meeting next month with the Ukrainian Minister of Agriculture regarding the increase of milk and milk products, as claimed by the Bulgarian Association of Milk Processors – an association with headquarters in Sliven, the Bulgarian Minister of Agriculture Takhov replied that he was not aware of such a meeting, but and having one in the future will work for the interests of Bulgarian producers.
“In our opinion, animal breeders and milk processors are now giving false information in order to push the price of milk down,” Hristova believes.
Of course, the focus of the meeting in the Council of Ministers fell on the payment of Ukrainian aid. Nearly 53,000 applications were submitted, and 51,069 were admissible. They require BGN 295 million in total. At the moment, there is about BGN 150 million for sensitive sectors, and about BGN 100 million for grain production.
“These BGN 45 million that are missing will be found. According to the acting Minister of Finance Ludmila Petkova, this will be done in two ways. One is through the restructuring of the plan account, we assume from PRDP, which will not harm the farmers applying under the various measures. And the second way is through the restructuring of the budget for the expenses of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education and Culture”, explains Hristova.
Georgi Takhov has taken action in the fastest way to convene the Management Board of DFZ, so that all the necessary decisions can be made. The authorities guarantee, however, that by May 15, the Ukrainian aid will be on the farmers’ accounts.
“It is possible that this money will be taken from the rest of the RDP money for the last program period. But the BGN 500 million that the previous finance minister, Asen Vassilev, gave additionally to the budget of the Ministry of Health for the new program period, went to the PRDP as national co-financing in the amount of 60%. He said then: “I am not to blame for the fact that you put them in the PRSR.” And indeed, the budget for PRDP is much higher”, recalls Hristova.
Unfortunately, it was confirmed at the meeting that the European Commission refused to allow the application of the tax relief for subsidies up to BGN 100,000 to individuals. The reasons are that the proposal does not correspond to the competitive distribution of funds in the European Community – that is, legal entities should also be included.
“This refusal by Brussels is in principle, and not only for the application of a retroactive tax relief, already this year. In order to send a new notification, we have to go through the same procedure – to have a review in the Committee on Agriculture, to vote, to include the legal entities, to publish it in the State Gazette and only then to send a new notification to the EC”. explains Hristova.
