Day four of farmers’ protests: “We either go bankrupt or continue with blocking the roads"

Despite another round of talks with the government scheduled for today, February 9, protesters with heavy equipment again took to the roads to demand urgent legislative changes, administrative relief and adequate support for the sector.

Protesting farmers near the village of Trud in Plovdiv demanded European green requirements to be abolished or at least adapted to the climatic conditions in Bulgaria.

"We are faced with some conditions that are absolutely abnormal. It is not possible to be required to plough on the 15th of February for spring crops and have good farming practice. In the past, in the textbooks it was written, that this is catastrophic," said Yordan Rachev, a farmer from Krumovo.

Protesters in Kyustendil made a human chain to stop traffic to the border crossing "Gyueshevo", which connects Bulgaria with North Macedonia.

"Believe me, this is the last place I want to be at the moment, but the knife is pointed at the bone and we have no other way out," said Pavel Ivanov, a farmer from Kyustendil.

The blockade also blocked the road to the Güeshevo border crossing with North Macedonia

"We are pushed to the wall or we go bankrupt or we continue with the blockades," Rosen Yosifov, a farmer from Kyustendil, was adamant.

For five hours traffic was stopped at the Danube Bridge crossing at Russe. Another blockade of Bulgaria’s border with Romania also caused discontent on the part of people working in the area.

"They should drive the tractors, combine harvesters, to thenyellow brick road in Sofia, make blockades there, block Sofia, because I think that this way the problem will be fixed. Ordinary people should not suffer, nobody from the ruling cares about that," said Deyan Genov, manager of a commercial outlet at the Danube Bridge border crossing

Danube Bridge 2 crossing at Vidin remained without transport access for six hours.

"Nobody should give up now. Now is our chance," Boycho Boychev stressed.

At the protest in Burgas, the chairman of the National Association of Grain Producers announced that the Ministry of Agriculture had proposed a new direction for the negotiations.

Burgas farmers expect consensus to be reached

"Yesterday there was a working group meeting in relation to the reports for proving losses plus the Ministry proposed, as an idea, to think in the direction of farms of up to 3,000 decares, which are over 25,200 in number, not to submit such a report, because this is also a burden for the State Fund "Agriculture" itself. Only 2,000 farms, which are over 3,000 decares, should file such report and it should be quite simple and cover only the business year, not the financial year," explained National Grain Producer Association (NGPA) Chair Ilia Prodanov.

However, day four of the protests led to a division among the protesters from Veliko Tarnovo region. Representatives of the cattle breeders' union and the farmers' association left the rally near the village of Sheremetya, as they said the negotiations were being conducted in the dark and not in favour of Bulgarian agriculture.