Bulgaria’s dairy sector is undergoing a challenging period that is further complicated by present political and economic instability. The new Cabinet has requested a third derogation to meeting EU quality/safety milk requirements.
Numerous farmer protests and road blockades this fall pressured the Ministry of Agriculture to provide more domestic support for the dairy/livestock sectors. The dairy sector, debating how to generate a soft landing from termination of the EU milk quota program, remains far from being fully prepared to meet new challenges in an open market.
Despite the decline in national dairy cow inventory and in the number of farms, encouraging signs of improvement are appearing, such as: higher milk productivity, good farm demand for quality genetics, rising milk prices, and steady trade. Larger farms which have evolved over the last two years have expressed the greatest optimism with regards to being competitive with outside competition in the near future.
