site.btaBulgaria Should Pay Larger Subsidies for Permanent Crops 

Subsidies for permanent crops should be increased from the meagre BGN 280 per hectare in order to ensure that there is Bulgarian produce. Fruit growing in Bulgaria is in decline and many orchards are being destroyed because of the insufficient subsidies, said Prof. Argir Zhivondov in a BTA interview. His research interests included selection, genetics and seed growing. He has created over 21 fruit varieties, including the first Bulgarian cherry variety, created through in vitro fertilisation, or embryo culture. In 2015 he was inscribed in the Golden Book of the Bulgarian Patent Office. 

Large subsidies are paid for field crops and there processes are mechanized, whereas subsidies for fruit growing are meagre given that there is a lot of manual labour and the crops are permanent, said Zhivondov. He recalled that in Greece, the state tops up the European subsidies for growing of cherries, peaches, nectarines, which automatically puts Bulgaria out of the competition. The situation is similar with apples. This is one of the explanations why rarely Bulgarians eat Bulgarian grown fruits, said Prof. Zhivondov.