Structural Changes in Bulgarian Agriculture in the Period 2007- 2017

Rumen Popov

Abstract: The agriculture has significant place in Bulgarian economy - 4.6% in 2007 and 3.7% in 2017 of the GDP and 19.4% and 18.9% of the employment. At the same time there are serious changes of the correlation between the two sub-sectors - crop growing and livestock breeding, as the output has changed in the ten-years period from 55.7%:44.7% to 72.6%:27.4%. Big changes have been observed also regarding the division in the sub-sectors – in the crop-growing the share of cereals and of industrial crops grows unlike the share of fruits and vegetables, while in the livestock-breeding there is a decrease of all sub-divisions. In relation to agricultural land could be noticed a strengthened use - at the beginning 3057.7 thousand acres have been used for arable land, for perennial crops -195.4; for pastures – 1839.3 and others - 27; at the end of period respectively 3473.8, 148.1 и 1392.4. The only crops with an increase are the essential crops, which show also a significant increase in production. The diminution of the livestock number results in diminution of production. The real price index of agricultural output (deflated to 2010) in total for the production from agriculture is 107.4; for the crop-growing it is 107.4 and for the livestock-breeding - 110.3. The agricultural output for the period is relatively unchanged and the intermediary consumption has a trend to equalizing. The GVA has a certain increase at the end of the period. The consumption of fixed capital increases, mainly due to the availability of European funds. The net GVA remains constant, while the incomes of other subsidies increases considerably as a result of the production support. The agricultural labour has diminished almost half and the factor income has increased by 3.3 times and reached 9172.1 EUR. The farm numbers shows a fast decrease - up to 2016 of 290 410, predominantly the farms with a size up to 1.9 ha. The UAA in the farms with size over 10 ha has increased and includes 95.52 of the total area. The agricultural exportation for the period 2007 - 2017 has increased 3.41 times, while the importation shows and increase of 2.41 times in the same period (current prices). The presented data and conclusions could be the base for further solutions of some of the most important problems of integration of Bulgarian agricultural policy to EU CAP.

Keywords: agricultural labour; export; farms number; import; land use; production volume

Date published: 2019-04-25