Half of last year's rice is still sitting in the barns - unsold, while the new harvest knocks at the door. Rice producers have been left in limbo, with no organized buy-up and no announced price for this season. For one of the hardest agricultural crops in the country, that's not a stall - it's a quiet collapse.

The numbers are merciless. The buy-up price of paddy rice ranges between 18 and 20 denars per kilogram - the lowest level in the last 10 years - while the production cost is around 25 denars. So the farmer works at a pure loss. And at the same time, white rice in stores costs from 120 to 150 denars. Somewhere between the field and the shelf, someone is making money - but it isn't the man who sowed it.

The Government says an intervention payment of around 50 million denars has already been made to rice producers. The opposition claims it's a patch, not a solution - there's no announcement of buy-up prices or subsidies for the rice being produced now. And while the politicians toss the numbers back and forth, the farmer watches his crop rot in a barn that wasn't built to store grain for months.

This is a story that repeats with every crop in the country - grapes, tobacco, tomatoes, and now rice. Someone promises a buy-up, someone is late with a subsidy, and in the end the farmer is left with a full barn and an empty pocket. The question isn't whether there'll be another intervention payment before an election. The question is when we'll have a system where the one who produces food isn't last in line to earn from it. Because without him - there's no rice, no grapes, no table.