Bulgarian farmers protest duty-free grain imports from Ukraine

By Ahmet Gencturk

ATHENS (AA) — Bulgarian farmers blocked roads in the northeastern part of the country, bordering Romania, to protest the duty-free import of grain from Ukraine, local media reported on Wednesday.

Blocking roads to border checkpoints and a port in the border town of Silistra, the farmers demanded that an EU regulation exempting Ukrainian grain from import duties not be extended to Bulgaria, according to the state-run BTA news agency.

Otherwise, the market prices for cereal and oilseed crops will fall short of production costs, let alone turn a profit, the farmers argue, underlining that many warehouses and silos in the country were full of unsold wheat.

"Every year we produce about 2 million tonnes of sunflowers, of which between 5% and 10% has been sold so far this year. About 4 million tonnes of wheat are sitting in warehouses," said Chair Iliya Prodanov,vice president of the National Grain Producer Association.