Three and a half hectares of peppers and two and a half hectares of tomatoes. The entire harvest, for 2,500 euros. That is an advert from a farmer in Kukliš - it works out at around ten denars a kilogram, three to four times cheaper than at the market. With one condition: the buyer picks it themselves.

This is not a marketing innovation. It is not a „farm to table” concept imported from Western Europe either. It is what is left when the crop is good and there is no buyer.

The sums that do not add up

A seasonal worker costs 300 to 400 denars an hour. The president of the National Agricultural Network, Ǵorǵi Karakašev, points out that the new rules on compulsory insurance for seasonal workers add further cost. At the same time, according to statistical data, agricultural buy-up prices in July are 5.5 percent lower than last year, while input costs are 4.1 percent higher.

Put those three numbers side by side. Labour is getting more expensive. What you sell is getting cheaper. What you produce with is getting dearer. In that arithmetic a good harvest is not good news - it is a cost that grows with every kilogram left standing in the field.

Karakašev adds another figure that rarely enters the subsidy debate: young people show no interest in farming. What is left in the fields are older people, with less physical capacity.

Why the pepper in the shop does not get cheaper

Here is the part that torments every household. If the farmer sells at ten denars, why do you pay several times more at the supermarket?

The difference is taken by intermediaries and the chain between the field and the shelf. Direct sales let the producer skip part of that chain and keep a bigger share of the final price. But the whole logistics burden comes with it - finding buyers himself, arranging transport himself, reaching the consumer on time himself. With seasonal produce that is a race against the clock, because fruit and vegetables do not wait for a better market.

What farmers have been asking for, for years

The demands are not new and they are not complicated: organised distribution, more reliable buy-up channels, better links between producers and end buyers. The Agriculture Ministry has previously announced direct links between producers and supermarkets precisely in order to shorten the chain.

The announcement exists. So does the „come and pick it yourself” advert. One is a plan, the other is August 2026.

What is missing is not new state aid in denars - it is digital local markets, storage capacity, processing and cooperatives. In other words, infrastructure that lets the crop wait. Until it exists, the farmer has only two options: sell at a price that does not cover his costs, or watch the produce rot.

This year, some of them chose a third - leave the field open and wait to see who turns up.