Poor harvest and relatively high prices of early cherry varieties in Plovdiv region

The harvest of the earliest cherry varieties in Plovdiv, Southern Bulgaria, is extremely poor due to the rainy weather in early May. This has kept prices relatively high for end consumers, growers in the region said. They have also not yet received the direct support from the Agriculture Fund, making harvesting even more difficult.

The Gaidarski family grows 10 acres of cherries near the village of Belashchitsa. So far, they are picking the cherries from the earliest varieties themselves because the crop is poor and the fruit is rotting on the trees.

"There wasn’t a lot of sun, there were rains, the water, the dew, was on the trees, on the grass, we harvested what we could, the rest is rotting," Violeta Gaidarova said.

The family sells the cherries alone at the market in Parvenets.

"I sell at around 3 BGN per kilo, 3 - 4 BGN, depending on the quality, today I even sold at 2 BGN," said Atanas Gaidarov.

They hope the weather will get better so they can harvest larger quantities. Then they will hire workers, and this year the daily wage is up to 70 BGN. The family expects between BGN 3,000 and 4,000 in state support, but payments have been delayed this year.

"From these subsidies we help ourselves for the spraying, ploughing, mowing, and partly for the wage. Now that we have filed our tax returns, we paid our taxes immediately, but the subsidy is not received," Violeta Gaidarova said.

The State Fund “Agriculture” said that the payments to the farmers will be approved by the end of the month. For small farmers, cherry bulk buyers in the villages are a good alternative because it saves them time and money.

"We decided to sell to those who give us a higher price, in several places bulk buyers gave us BGN 2, and here, at this point it is BGN 2.50, so we will sell to them" said Maria Yacheva, a producer.

In the village of Brestnik there are cherry bulk buyers in at least four places. They refused to stand in front of the BNT camera, but explained that their mark-up is up to BNG 0,50 per kilo. Greek cherries are much more expensive at the moment, but there is a market for them because of the poor Bulgarian harvest.