By working together in associations, fruit and vegetable producers have a much better chance to access foreign markets, according to Mr Kosta Petrov, president of the Bulgarian Peach Association, who was one of the speakers in a discussion forum held at the Grand Hotel Sofia under the topic "Is Bulgarian agriculture competitive?"
He pointed out that the members of his association manage to export about 70% of their peaches to Vienna and Warsaw, and before the introduction of the Russian embargo, they also made shipments to St. Petersburg and Moscow, and cherries are exported to Bucharest.
Mr Petrov said that the organization, established in 2005 and officially recognised by Ministry of Agriculture, has been making use of a logistics centre with refrigeration facilities in Sliven, whose construction was the result of a Bulgarian-German project and where the fruits are sorted and packaged.
Initially, the Association consisted of 24 members and this figure has now increased to 47. "By working together, small and medium growers are able to sell their produce," said the president of the association.
He believes that, overall, Bulgarians tend to be sceptical about the idea of cooperatives, mostly due to the poor support from the state during the old Development Programme (2007 -2014). Under the new program, however, lasting from 2014 to 2020, producer organizations have been expected to receive greater support.
In the words of Mr Petrov, one of the severest issues affecting the industry is the unfair competition from unregulated producers. Another problem is the technological gap with other growers in Europe and poor varietal choices.
It is worth noting that Minister Desislava Taneva said that the country's fruit and vegetable sector employs about 9 thousand growers, of which only 0.3% are organised in 14 recognised producer organizations.
