Barley: Going out of favor with local farmers
April 19, 2018 at 2:59 PM ,
Starry Night Ltd.
BULGARIA. Favoring recent weather conditions permitted farmers to start sowing Spring barley on a larger scale throughout the country, but on an annual basis, sowed acreages still lag behind. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, by the end of last week, farmers managed to plant 1,180 ha of the crop while by that time last year, planted fields stood at 2,801 ha; the difference is close to 60% in favor of last year’s. Although the rate of sowing was sped-up, it is impossible to snap out of the belated sowing campaign since farmers could not compete with weather conditions, but instead have to adapt. There is no change of hearts yet, although fortunes and minds in the agrarian business could change pretty quickly since weather is a key factor!
Barley: no one lives in ivory towers any more
Nationwide, the majority of barley is harvested throughout the Southeast region, followed by the regions of the North. Before the start of the upcoming harvest, in less than a two-months-and-a-half time, farmers will definitely stand before fields of barley that will substantially differ in acreages from those of last year. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the most recent estimates for sowed barley’s land nationwide show a figure of 115,762 ha, which on a year-to-year basis stands by close to 11% lower.
|
Harvest 2017-18 (01.07.2017 - 13.04.2018) units in MT |
|
|
Beginning availability |
22,000 |
|
Aggregate output |
633,393 |
|
Imports |
5,314 |
|
Domestic consumption |
276,000 |
|
beer production |
61,500 |
|
feed |
184,500 |
|
seeds |
30,000 |
|
Exports to the world |
311,828 |
|
to EU markets |
259,432 |
|
to rest of the world |
52,396 |
Source: Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture
Barley is clearly going out of favor with local farmers since they have been purposefully reducing its cultivation during the last several years. For harvest 2014-15, farmers harvested 214,697 ha, realizing an aggregate output of 852,231 mt, according to local authorities. Since then, cultivation of barley has been losing ground to other, more profitable crops such as rapeseed and wheat. Although the majority of locally grown barley is swiftly bought out in the following few months after harvest – the greater quantities going to the EU market, tough regional competition, pushing down prices, is what troubles local farmers. Planting and hoping to realize high profits, most of the times, farmers have fallen prays to intermediary market players. Thus, becoming more and more disillusioned, they have responded by cutting cultivation.
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