Has the Bulgarian Market Collapsed because of the Import of Ukrainian Grain?

On July 22, 2022, the UN and Turkey signed an agreement to open a safe maritime humanitarian corridor in the Black Sea. Through the Black Sea Grain Initiative, around 800 ships filled with grain and other food products have left three Ukrainian ports. As of March this year, more than 23 million tons of grain and other food products were exported, according to data from the Council of the European Union. This is what BNR quoted today in its regular fact check column.

Almost 49% of the cargo was corn, the share of wheat was 28%, and sunflower products - 11%. The grain was mainly for developing countries, according to the data of the Joint Coordination Center of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

The import of Ukrainian grain into Bulgaria has led to a sharp drop in the prices of wheat, corn and sunflower, and the Bulgarian production cannot be realized, say the Bulgarian grain producers, who went to protests.

Claim: Ukrainian grain imports crashed the Bulgarian market

"The prices fell drastically, there is no market for our production," commented the protesting grain producers in March.

"Ukrainian goods are coming in, we are not against them. There should have been a corridor, but the grain remains in Bulgaria."

"At the moment, the purchase price of our production is about 40% below the cost price. Measured in sunflowers, we can talk about losses of about 800 million BGN. In Bulgaria, about two million tons of sunflower are produced in a year. No more than 5-10% of it has been realized so far."

According to the data of the agricultural market information system maintained on the website of the Ministry of Agriculture, before the Ukrainian import of wheat, the average price of...