Agriculture Minister Borce Serafimovski says the grape purchase is running smoothly. He has the numbers to back it up: over 54 million kilograms of grapes are already in domestic wineries or exported. Fourteen wineries have bought over 35 million kilograms - 15 million red and 20 million white. They processed another 7 million from their own vineyards, family wineries 1.5 million, and over 10.5 million kilograms of wine and table grapes have been exported.

On the same day, in Tremnik near Negotino, the growers were telling an entirely different story.

The vranec is spoiling, white grapes fetch 14 denars

At a meeting with SDSM leader Venko Filipce, growers raised the alarm that black grapes of the vranec variety are not being bought at all and are spoiling on the vines, while white grapes are going for 14 denars a kilogram.

Fourteen denars. That is less than a quarter of a euro for a kilogram of grapes that demands a full year of work, spraying, pruning, irrigation and harvesting.

Filipce said the growers are watching the effort and money they invested collapse in front of them while the government brings in no measure that would help. According to him this is not a problem confined to the Negotino area, but a situation across the entire country.

Two truths on the same day

Both claims can be true at the same time, and that is precisely the most uncomfortable part of this story. It can be true that 54 million kilograms have been bought - and simultaneously true that vranec in specific vineyards in specific villages is rotting.

Serafimovski criticised the way isolated cases are used to construct a picture of a purchase in difficulty, and stressed that the State Inspectorate carries out daily checks at the collection points. Fine. But "an isolated case" is a category established by data, not by a statement. How many tonnes of vranec are unsold? At how many producers? The 54-million-kilogram figure does not answer that question.

The proposals that did not pass

Right at the start of the purchase season, SDSM proposed three things: raising the purchase price by 5 denars per kilogram, scrapping the eight percent discount demanded in exchange for faster payment, and an intervention purchase by the state of black grapes left unsold. The government did not accept them.

Filipce has now announced a new proposed measure in parliament, based on the situation on the ground - how many growers have delivered, how many have not, how much fruit is spoiling in the fields and from the rain.

The figure that turns the discussion

In the same sentence as the growers' problems, Filipce also mentioned the 5.5 million euros the government set aside for the David Guetta concert. That is a political comparison and should be read as one - budgets are not a single purse.

But viticulture is one of the export-oriented sectors the country boasts about whenever it needs an export figure. If the price of 14 denars holds next year too, shrinking vineyard acreage will not be a political question - it will be arithmetic.