site.btaAgricultural Producers Join Wildfire Fight

Following a request of caretaker Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev, agricultural producers from the Bulgarian Farmers' Union (BFU) have joined the fight against the wildfires that rage across Bulgaria, providing machinery and equipment, the BFU said on Thursday.

BFU Chair Georgi Stoyanov urged more farmers to aid the firefighters. Once again, he insisted that the state should start experimenting with cloud seeding to increase rain, which will be in favour of agriculture, irrigation, and even in the fight against wildfires.

Europe is lagging, but in Romania similar experiments have been carried out for two years now, with a positive effect, because in the areas where they have been carried out, rainfall has increased by 10%, Stoyanov said. "Bulgaria could be among the first countries in Europe because our teams already have the experience in Romania. Our country has the necessary specialists, meteorologists, equipment and scientists. This is a good basis to start the research in our country," he explained.

However, according to the BFU Chair, everything depends on the state. Without the state, action is impossible because it involves many permits from the institutions, including working with the Bulgarian Air Traffic Services Authority (BULATSA). There are airspaces that cannot be processed without permission from BULATSA, he stressed.

In Stoyanov's words, cloud seeding can solve irrigation problems in some areas of the country where there are summer droughts. Moreover, the BFU is demanding that the condition of Bulgaria's micro dams, which are more than 3,000, be checked. They urgently need to be integrated into the agricultural irrigation system.

The National Grain Producers Association has started a campaign to help livestock farmers affected by the big wildfire in Sakar Mountain, calling on farmers to donate bales of hay, straw, alfalfa and grain.