The Rural Development Operational Programme (RDOP) for 2007-2013 started with a delay of one year and was virtually groping its way. This impacted negatively on the volume of absorbed European financing. Apart from wrongly set priorities, problems also arose from alleged corrupt practices in fund management. For the time being, the absorption of 248 million euro is being questioned as the European Union has doubts about the correct spending of this amount.

The RDOP for the 2014-2020 period that has been prepared by several consecutive governments of Bulgaria will also start with a delay of a year and a half at least because it is still waiting for the approval of the European Commission. Its seven-year budget comes to the total of 2.3 billion euro.

The new programme seeks to offset the imbalance that occurred during the first period between heavy subsidized grain farming at the expense of traditional sectors such as market gardening and animal husbandry. This time due attention will be paid to organic farming as well. „We have to encourage the sectors that yield higher added value and the ones that have not been supported in a fair way”, Minister of Agriculture and Food Desislava Taneva has said.

In the meantime however eleven NGOs in the sector of horticulture and vegetable growing have made apocalyptic forecasts for 2015. „Bulgarian fruit and vegetables will vanish from the market”, they argued. So far neglected by the policies for granting European subsidies, the sector has faced strong competition from other European countries getting much bigger subsidies. Their produce that has failed to reach the Russian market in the wake of the EU embargo has triumphantly entered the Bulgarian market instead.

In practice, the people working in the sector contend, the next programming period will see cuts instead of subsidies' growth resulting from a decision made on 1 August by the Committee on Agriculture. According to it the Bulgarian producers of fruits and vegetables will get unfair treatment once again in terms of allocation of subsidies under the scheme “Bound support among vulnerable sectors for the period 2015-2020". In an open letter to the government, farmers warn that this will make the delicious Bulgarian fruits and vegetables uncompetitive on both the European and the local market flooded by subsidized Greek, Turkish and Macedonian produce. This will result in major layoffs in the sector that accounts for the largest number of jobs in agriculture. It seems that a lot more should be done for horticulture in the new Rural Development Operational Programme for Bulgaria.

Management negligence has made 2014 a zero year for organic farming leaving it without any subsidies whatsoever. In the coming years of the programme organic farmers have brighter prospects based on a budget worth 100 million euro. The range of subsidized activities will broaden to include organic animal farming, apart from organic plant growing and bee-keeping.

A clear priority will be set to support young farmers with 38 million euro allocated to them in the coming six years. Payment of funds under RDOP 2014-2020 for Bulgaria allocated to young farmers will begin in mid-2015.

Not a word however is heard about a problem that has been neglected for quite some time - irrigation agriculture. The irrigation system of the country that has been almost ruined for the past 20 years is in urgent need of repair in case we aim to make Bulgarian agriculture competitive on the market.

English Daniela Konstantinova