Bulgaria’s 2024 corn, sunflower harvests worst in decade – report
The 2024 harvests of corn and sunflower in Bulgaria are the worst in the past 10 years, because of the dry and extremely hot summer, and – above all – the lack of irrigation, Bulgarian National Television (BNT) reported.
In a normal season, corn yields are about 700kg per 0.1 hectare, but in the Rousse district, where the most extensive crops are, farmers are harvesting 450-500kg per 0.1 hectares.
The situation in Silistra is worse, where yields are mostly between 200 and 300kg per 0.1 hectares, farmer Stanimir Stanchev told BNT.
He estimated the losses at an average of 30 per cent, meaning hundreds of thousands of leva, after the payment of rents.
Sunflower yields are about half of the norm.
Because of the heat, Bulgaria’s sunflower harvest started a month earlier than usual, at the beginning of August.
At best, farmers harvested about 150kg per 0.1 hectares, compared with a normal 280-300kg.
Some farmers are trying to solve the problem of the lack of irrigation by digging wells, though this is a huge investment given how far down they have to go.
“New irrigation infrastructure must be built urgently, the Danube is only a few kilometres from the fields in Dobrudzha, but for that we also need stable state policy,” Stanchev said.
This season, about 20 per cent of Bulgaria’s rice paddies remained without water supply from Irrigation Systems, Georg Vidolov, head of the Bulgarian Rice Association, told agri.bg.
The report said that most farmers believed that water management in Bulgaria should be united in one place.
Currently, responsibility for various dams and reservoirs is divided among the Environment and Waters Ministry, Agriculture and Food Ministry through its Irrigation Systems company, the Energy Ministry, and other entities.
Summer 2024 has been Bulgaria’s warmest in 140 years, climatologist Simeon Matev told Nova Televizia on September 2.
August 2024 was one of the warmest Augusts in Bulgaria since modern record-keeping began in 1930, Bulgaria’s national weather bureau said on August 30.
The month of July 2024 in Bulgaria was similarly warm to July 2012, which was the country’s warmest seventh month of the year since 1930, the national weather bureau said on July 31.
June 2024 was Bulgaria’s warmest six month of the year since 1930, the national weather bureau said on June 28.
(Photo: flickr/ Alex Lomas)
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