August 10 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria expects to harvest around 6.5 million tonnes of wheat in 2022 and no supply crisis can be expected, caretaker agriculture minister Yavor Gechev said.
There is currently an excess of grain supply in Bulgaria, Romania and Poland resulting from the ongoing war in Ukraine and the related exports of Ukrainian grain, Gechev said in statement to local media published on the ministry's website on Tuesday.
You can download the 2023 Agriculture industry in Southeast Europe report here
The projected harvest is less than the 7.16 million tonnes of wheat collected in the 2020-2021 bumper crop year, which represented an increase of 52% on the previous agricultural year.
Bulgaria is mulling various strategies to cope with grain oversupply, which will be discussed with the European Commission, Gechev added. Further measures are also being weighed up regarding phytosanitary control of grain imports.
The average yield is around 6 tonnes per hectare, local media quoted Gechev as saying.
Bulgaria had imported 6,000 tonnes of wheat and 1,300 tonnes of barley from Ukraine in 2022, former agriculture minister Ivan Ivanov said last month.
Although the European Commission exempted grain imports from Ukraine from customs duty and phytosanitary checks, Bulgaria has had measures in place to ensure that the imported commodity meets EU standards.