Bulgaria's 2023 wheat harvest up 6%

The harvest exceeded the volume of wheat collected in the 2021-2022 crop year, which was slightly over 6.2 million tonnes, according to final data, the ministry said in a statement last week.

It is sufficient to meet the country's needs of wheat for the production of flour, bread and confectionery, which stand at an average 1.1 million tonnes annually, and the needs of the animal feed and export markets, agricultural minister Kiril Vatev said.

Bulgaria had some 3.4 million tonnes of wheat, 1.8 million tonnes of maize and 1.5 million tonnes of sunflower seed available in silos as of December 8, according to the statement.

At 1.62 million tonnes from 860,039 ha sown, the 2023 sunflower harvest is 21% lower than last year's. This is both due to a 6% decline in the area sown and to a 16% drop in average yield per ha to 0.189, according to data published by the agriculture ministry in late November.

According to provisional estimates, the maize harvest amounted to 2.25 million tonnes from 534,827 ha sown, or 9.9% less than in 2022, on account of the 11.6% fall in average yield per ha, according to a separate data release from the ministry last week.