United Agrarians Party: Agriculture Must Become a Priority Industry for Bulgaria

Active Youth is an Important Ingredient of Citizen Society UA Seminar, 16-17 July 2011, Plovdiv

Agriculture has to become a true priority of Bulgaian economics . This consesus position was reached by the participants in the discussion on the development and modernisation of the agricultural industry, organised by United Agarians and the "Konrad Adenauer" Foundation.

The event took place on 16 September in Grand Hotel "Sofia" in the capital. Attended agricultural producers, representatives of industrial organisations, lecturers in agricultural institutes and industry experts.

There are plenty of unsolved problems in agriculture today - delayed pyout of subsidies, excessive bureaucracy, administration failures and sanctions for past periods on thousands of Bulgarian farmers, said United Agrarians Chair Petya Stavreva.

The small and medium agro-producers live with severe financial circumstances. The industries, which suffer the most severe crisis, have very few euro-subsidy candidates. Like milk-production and vegetable growing.

We are lagging behind in the utilisation of the funds under the Village Regions Development Program – almost 5 years after our accession to the EU the actual payouts to projects have not reached 30 % of its budget to 2013. The temporary and partial financial solutions applied do not contribute to long term planning in the industry.

The agrarian industry cannot be developed or modernised without a well oriented industry policy, said Georgi Karkamov, UA Deputy Chair.

"Agriculture must become a priority for Bulgaria, since there is no substitute for food. It is a part of the national security”, said right-wing presidential candidate Rumen Hristov, who was a guest at the event.

All regions in the country have their specific circumstances and a strategy has to be region-sensitive, added Montana wheat grower Valia Koleva.

Spmetimes wheat growers are forced to communicate Brussels directly, when their problems are not solved locally, said Svilen Radev, a wheat grower from Avren.

Borislav Sendov from the Bulgarian Association Bio-Products stressed that, lacking adequate national support for bio-agriculture, the utilisation of the european funds for agro-ecology is barely about 2% of the alotted budget.

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"Active youth is a very important ingredient of citizen society in all democracies. Young people are the potential of the United Agrarians Political Party. A political party willing to reach the future, must encourage and support the young. It is my priority young people to have a voice in decsions about the development of our union.” This is how UA Chair Petya Stavreva addressed the participants in a seminar co-organised by UA and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. The topic of the event was - The Role of the Young for an Active Citizen Society.

The seminar took place in Plovdiv on 16 and 17 July. Participated young people from various regions of the country.

“It is far from easy to assert young people in politics. That is why I am happy to have passed the baton of leadership to a young person”, said UA Honorary Chair Anastasia Moser. She pointed out that she had encouraged the active young in the agrarian union over the years.

In the citizen society context, said Antony Galabov, Associate Professor at NBU, more than 80 % of the Bulgarians believe that we are not equal before the law. The most severe problem of the young, he said, was the transfer from education to work.

Tatiana ATANASOVA