This year the host of the holiday is the Regional Union of Farmers "Danube Grain" - Ruse. The ceremony will be held in the village of Borisovo, and the guest of the reaping ceremony will be the new Minister of Agriculture and Food Kiril Vatev. Along with the National opening of the harvest campaign, there will also be a ritual harvesting of rye under the "Bread of Peace" international project. 

This is a European initiative related to the fall of the Iron Curtain, which includes twelve countries from Central and Eastern Europe. Bulgaria is one of them. From 2013 until now, in each of the countries, rye has been sown with seeds harvested in the fields around the Reconciliation Church in Berlin - the site of the former "death strip" of the Berlin Wall that divided Europe. After the rye is reaped, each country sends its seeds to be ground together and the bread of peace is kneaded. The event symbolizes the breaking down of political and economic boundaries and the overcoming of division.

The days from mid-June to the end of July are the most valuable time of the year for any grain producer. Expectations are for a very good harvest this year as well, but the problem comes from the tonnes of unsold wheat left in farmers' warehouses. 

More than 6 million tonnes of wheat are expected from this year's harvest, and about one third of last year's wheat remains unsold in the country. In the last 20 years, there has not been such a large transitional remainder of available wheat, said Radoslav Hristov, chairman of the Thracian Union of Grain Producers to BNR-Stara Zagora.

"Most countries are trying to help Ukraine, but we forget to support domestic production, and since May of this year, Bulgaria has been losing traditional grain markets. At the moment, it is not even a question of what price we will be able to sell our grain at, but whether we can sell it. We have been selling below cost for a long time, that's why the European media also wrote that the grain on the world exchanges is already below its cost. I hope we can find markets for this grain that is in our warehouses, because otherwise it will lead to a rather serious problem.”

"In the Bulgarian warehouses there are now 1 mln. 700 thousand tonnes of grain, 1 million tonnes of sunflower and all this production is to be sold at very low prices. The losses of the grain producers are so great that I do not see such a resource of financial assistance from Europe being released to help them. And the harvest that we are about to harvest has a terribly high cost", Ilia Prodanov, chairman of the National Association of Grain Producers, told BNR:

"The only solution to the problem is to stop imports into EU countries for a certain time, at least until we can clear our quantities. We have repeatedly stated that what we want is to expand the list of this ban and extend its validity even further.”

"The heavy rains in June have so far not caused damage to the wheat crop, but rather there will be a problem with the spring crops /sunflower and corn/, but there is nothing fatal," stated in an interview with Radio Bulgaria Milen Koev, chairman of the Regional Union of the Danube Grain farmers. He is also of the opinion that no one is clear how the new harvest will be realized, given that the warehouses have not been emptied. 

About 2 million tonnes of wheat go mainly to Bulgaria per year, and the remaining quantities are exported. In a year, our country produces three times more than its own needs - between 6-7 million tonnes.

"No one is looking at agriculture in a longer-term perspective, it is a very dynamic process, every day is a struggle, starting with climate change, which makes agriculture more and more dynamic, and ending with the introduction of new technologies, new hybrids, so there can be no stagnation in this activity" - says Milen Koev:

"That's why we learn from experience and develop literally every new day. Field conditions are very dynamic and most of them are beyond our control. We must adapt to them in order to work effectively. There is no time for rest, especially now that the field work is from morning to night. In agriculture, the maxim that "yesterday is too early, but tomorrow is too late" applies - our work must be done today, while the conditions allow. We harvest depending on how long the weather allows us in the field, depending on when the dew will fall. Then we stop, and if it starts to rain, the harvest stops. We have no fixed working hours, dependent on nature, so during harvest we are in a constant race against time.”

Photos: National Association of Grain Producers in Bulgaria