Some 4 000 Bulgarian farmers are on the verge of going bankrupt, the Milk Producers Association alarmed Sunday.

I am actually surprised that there are still that many farmers in Bulgaria. Once the pride of Bulgaria, today the milk production sector is in ruins.

This has been going on for years – ever since 1989. However, at the beginning the difficulties had to do with the restructuring of the planned economy – something that can be done better or worse, but everyone was clear it will require sacrifices.

In the last few years, however, the problems of the milk producing sector in Bulgaria are of a different nature. While Bulgaria’s rural regions are becoming more and more dilapidated as no one has really put even a tiny bit of effort into developing them, there have been those several thousand people who have been bold enough to try being farmers.

I am not going to delve in detail into the milk producers’ issues because they are rather complex and numerous. By the way, they are not that different from the problems that all Bulgarian agricultural producers are faced with.

But a simple look gives the following impression: Bulgaria did not do a good job negotiating its farming subsidies with the EU. Now they are way lower than those for Western European farmers, and on top of that ours don’t get them on time at all. (The situation was really bad in the last two years of the Stanishev government).

Then, there is the extremely huge contraband. It affects all sorts of agricultural producers. With the milk producers, it is the import of powder milk. As a result, Bulgaria’s farmers have to sell 1 liter of milk for BGN 0,2-0,4. At the same time, the price of 1 kg of forage is BGN 0,38.

I cannot say for sure how much the plight of the Bulgarian farmers is related with the fact that for the last 8 years the Agriculture Ministry has been in the hands of the ethnic Turkish party DPS (Movement for Rights and Freedoms). But it does make a lot of sense that if the situation in some sector is bad, the respective Ministry is to be blamed for it – for not trying to at least rectify it.

The main agriculture issue for the DPS party was the fate of the tobacco production – clearly, because tobacco growing is a very important livelihood for their voters – ethnic Turkish Bulgarians and Bulgarian Muslims. At the same time, especially throughout 2008, the milk producers were blocking roads, staging protests, and pouring tons of milk in the streets all around the country. They have been asking for fairer subsidies, being paid on time, crackdowns on contraband, high forage prices.

In his interview for Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) given the day before the EU Elections in June 2009, Bulgaria’s then future Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov vowed to dedicate priority efforts to the agriculture sector. Shortly after assuming office in July 2009, his government has moved to crack down on vegetables contraband and to carry audits in the Agriculture Ministry, where gross violations have been reported by the new Minister Miroslav Naydenov, and his DPS predecessor, Valeri Stefanov, has already been charged becoming the first former Bulgarian Minister in the last 20 years to be charged with corruption crimes.

Yet, the milk producers’ eyes are still on Boyko Borisov and his government, and according to people from their organizations, a new crisis is brewing in the sector, and the farmers might go out in the streets again.

The Borisov government needs to move as quickly as possible to do whatever it can to rectify the situation of the milk producers. First, because it has promised to help Bulgaria’s agriculture, and second, because streets protests so early in its turn would be very harmful to it even if it is very promising and does have the will to tackle the above-mentioned issues.

A couple of decades ago Bulgaria had the best yogurt in the world – thanks to its unique bacteria lactobacillus bulgaricus, which has prompted Japan to start producing “Bulgarian yogurt”.

Today it is a known fact that only one brand of yogurt in Bulgaria uses this bacteria, and most brands of yogurt on the Bulgarian market use imported (including contraband) powder milk, and palm oil instead of Bulgarian milk from cows and sheep grazing in the pastorally idyllic mountains and valleys of the country.

So if the catastrophic situation of the milk producers is not rectified quickly, very soon asking “Got Milk?” will make no sense. Actually, I am looking forward to a trip to Japan, where I will be able to try real Bulgarian milk – with the real Bulgarian bacteria, and made of actual milk.