After he enraged social networks in March 2011 by advising impoverished Bulgarians to grow potatoes to survive the economic crisis, Bulgaria's Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has added sheep breeding to the list of favored ways to make a living.

"If you want a successful business, you should breed sheep and lambs. Markets are hungry, and they buy them in both Europe, and Turkey," Borisov declared in an interview for the Standart daily published Tuesday, after in March his advice was that "with so much uncultivated lands anybody can plant potatoes."

The PM elaborated that animal breed has a lot to offer, which is why his government allocated BGN 50 M to support farmers.

"Our goods are wanted everywhere, we can't meet the export demand," is how the PM quoted farmers as saying to him.

In addition to advising Bulgarians to take up sheep breeding, Borisov criticized green energy projects.

He stated that the Cabinet is seeking investments that create jobs and revenues for the state, while the wide-spread green energy projects have had the opposite effect in his words.

"They are only sucking off funds from the budget. If we don't stop them, we might have to import electricity in 1-2 years," Borisov stated.

In the same interview, he explained that Bulgaria's National Social Security Institute (NOI) is about as insolvent as the Bulgarian State Railways BDZ, and that the previous government would get BGN 680 M out of the Institute each year in order to pay the social security and insurance of the military, the police, the intelligence officers, and the State National Security Agency DANS.

"We are actually using the taxes to fill up NOI because the previous governments didn't tell the people honestly that the current retirement age is unsustainable," Borisov claimed.

He further promised an increase of minimum monthly retirement pensions from BGN 136 to BGN 145 as of May 2012 even though the government and his ruling center-right party GERB are still debating the promised pension increase.

Borisov did thank former Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski for "stopping them (i.e. the former government of PM Sergey Stanishev and the three-way coalition) from stealing all the money, and putting aside BGN 2 B in the retirement "Silver Fund" to prop up the fiscal reserve."

"If he had allowed them to spend this buffer, too, we would hardly stand a chance today," the PM concluded.