“We are unprepared for the “farm to fork” strategy which the European Commission adopted,” meat producer Kiril Vutev said for the BNR.

“The aim of the strategy is to incorporate the participants in the agro food chain – farmers in the field, processors, dealers and consumers. However in Bulgaria there is no such organization,” he said.

Kiril Vutev pointed out that in the 1930s there were a lot of powerful cooperatives in Bulgaria thanks to which the country was among the big fruit, vegetable, meat and dairy producers of Europe. To be able to live up to this strategy, Kiril Vutev says, there need to be legislative amendments turning the professional organizations into institutions with rights and responsibilities. In the advanced countries the problem professional organizations have is where to find new markets and earn the trust of consumers, but in this country their problem is how to collect their membership fees, the entrepreneur says.