CAP of the EU and the Development of Bulgarian Agriculture in Medium-Term Plan

The present article analyzes the effect of the changes in economics on agriculture, the possibilities for sector development within the frame of CAP and the accession conditions, the state of production and the economic structures and points out the priorities of the Bulgarian agricultural policy in medium-term plan. The economic development leads to a decrease of the importance of agriculture for the national economies as well as to new requirements to the agricultural producers for standardized production. This imposes the conduction of a differentiated structural policy that guarantees stability of land use to the big producers and support for modernization to the small ones. The membership in the EU opens up possibilities for sector development but at the same time the highly reduced access to agricultural subsidies will discredit the competitiveness of Bulgarian producers for a long period of time. For Bulgaria it is more important to make the production conditions equal rather than the absolute size of the subsidies. The risks are related to transition to extensive productions, export of unprocessed products and import of highly processed products. In confirmation of this, the level of production of basic products of plant and animal origin is considerably below the natural potential of Bulgarian agriculture. In structural aspect the polar structure of the farms is preserved. The land resources are used partially and ineffectively. In spite of the large-scale modernization the food sector suffers from serious weaknesses from the viewpoint of technologies and raw material base. The achievement of the long-term aim of the Bulgarian agricultural policy - building of a productive, stable and vital agriculture - is possible, first, in the case of effective application of CAP, i.e. utilization of the emerging possibilities and second, upon conduction of a consistent national policy for sector modernization. The priorities in this respect are: continuation of the structural reform in agriculture in the direction of the ownership of agricultural lands and building stable production units on this basis; increase of the security of land use by creating normative prerequisites for concluding long-term agreements for land renting that will stimulate investments with a long-term effect; introduction of the principle of modulation in Bulgaria and direction of part of the released resources for support of vegetable-growing, fruit-growing and stock-breeding.