There are no grounds for a shortage of sunflower oil for the domestic market and for the price of oil to rise. This became clear during a meeting of the Minister of Agriculture and Food, Kiril Vatev, with sunflower producers and processors, according to a press release of the Ministry of Agriculture.
The tension between sunflower producers and processors in our country is intensifying. Today, the National Association of Grain Producers surprisingly announced that sunflower is not an exchange commodity, therefore it is not possible to search for a market price.
At the same time, at a briefing after the meeting, Minister Vatev informed journalists that our country has made a request to the European Commission that the ban on duty-free imports of Ukrainian sunflowers continue to operate until the end of the year. Brussels’ decision is expected by September 15, when the veto expires.
It was precisely against this extension of the ban that the oil producers declared themselves. These days, they warned that due to the lack of raw material at market prices, they will be forced to stop the oil mills. Processors also claim that farmers are currently refraining from selling last year’s dormant sunflower in anticipation of an increase in its price after September 15.
After today’s meeting at the Ministry of Agriculture, it became clear that the warehouses of the oil plants are also full of unrealized production. “At the moment, it turns out that there is too much oil in the processors’ warehouses and they do not have the opportunity to buy the available sunflower”, said Minister Kiril Vatev.
Oil mills are about to close due to the ban on the import of cheap Ukrainian sunflower and the lack of raw material at market prices. This was alarmed by the association of vegetable oil producers and they complained that the Ministry of Agriculture refused to dialogue with them.
He admitted that the two-hour meeting did not lead to substantial solutions in the dispute between producers and processors, and the dialogue will resume after September 15, when it will be clear whether the European Commission will extend the ban on imports of cheap Ukrainian sunflower.
Bulgaria has insisted to Brussels until the end of the year to introduce a ban on imports from Ukraine and two new goods – unrefined oil and dry milk. At the same time, we will not challenge the lifting of the veto on the import of Ukrainian wheat, corn and rapeseed.
“The five Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and our country have already had a lot of meetings. Each country has different interests. Bulgaria wants to have no sunflower seeds left in the warehouses because of the cheaper imports from Ukraine. Therefore, we want to extend the ban on the import of sunflower and unrefined sunflower oil,” said the Minister of Agriculture. According to him, the ban should also cover dry milk, where there is a large amount of dumping from Ukraine.
After the meeting, only the grain producers seemed satisfied. “There is oil and there is sunflower. They are Bulgarian and of good quality,” commented the National Association of Grain Producers (NAZ). “The only goal of the farmers is to be able to sell our sunflowers on time, and with such duty-free imports, the blocked market from last year will be repeated,” said Iliya Prodanov, chairman of the NAZ. He explained again how in the last 3 months they managed to sell 600,000 tons from last year’s harvest, but at prices 40% below their cost price. “Last year, production costs reached BGN 1,000 per ton, while this summer we sold between BGN 700 and 750,” Prodanov pointed out.
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2023-08-24 16:17:53
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