Agricultural land in Bulgaria is fragmented into more than 20 million plots with more than 3 million owners. Under this index the country is the leader in Europe.

“No matter how much European financing goes to Bulgarian agriculture it cannot become effective resulting from the fragmentation of the farming land with an average size of plots at 0.6 ha and due to the ruined or absent irrigation and drainage infrastructure”, said Galina Peycheva, Deputy Chairperson of the Association of Agricultural Land Owners in an interview for the Bulgarian National Radio.

Prior to 1989, 1.2 million ha in Bulgaria were irrigated using dedicated irrigation infrastructure, while today – less than 0.1 million ha.

“Over the last ten years in neighboring Turkey the state service for irrigation has completed projects for the irrigation of 0.5 million ha while at the same time has achieved consolidation of the land and irrigation over 3.5 million ha. In Bulgaria successful land consolidation projects are six all in all, and they are fully private – of the Association”, Peycheva said.