“The purpose of the Advisory Councils is the participants in the product chain to set tasks for the administration and to look for solutions to the problems”, said Minister of Agriculture and Food, Kiril Vatev, during the Advisory Council on Meat and Eggs, held at the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. He emphasized that no association could exist or function for itself. “We all are in the same agro-food chain, in the case of meat. Grain and feed, farms, slaughterhouses, processors, selection and trade all have their place in this chain, because this is the path of the meat to the table. It is very important to us, besides executive directors of associations, the producers to participate in the advisory councils because they are the real members of this chain, and we all to get to know the relations from the field to the table. To look for synergy and ways to cooperate and become more successful in the market. It is important to search for working models and practices from abroad that are applicable in our country, in order to be more effective, Minister Vatev pointed out.
Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food Assoc. Prof. Deyan Stratev also took part in the meeting.
Evgenia Achkakanova, chair of the Association for breeding the Ile de France breed in Bulgaria, congratulated the management of the agri-ministry for the initiative to start advisory councils. She stated that the dialogue at these councils would lead to a positive result. She emphasized the need to increase the population of all farm animals in Bulgaria to at least partially the levels of years ago, when this country exported both live animals and processed products. The expectation is that the advisory board will find the necessary formula for this, based also on good European practices, and the results are expected to make themselves felt a year from now.
The Chairman of the Association of Industrial Poultry Farming, Daniel Bozhankov, welcomed Minister Vatev's ideas about closer cooperation between all players along the food chain and said that the poultry sector is already working in this direction. The future of the Bulgarian farmer is in cooperation and in providing better quality produce to the consumer, and this can only be achieved by pooling the costs of producers and improving the quality of what is produced, following the example of other European countries, Bozhankov said.
“Connections along the entire chain were made, as is the mission of these councils, so after a year, we could have results at market level, satisfaction and quality indicators, which would improve the health status of people”, commented Stefka Boeva, Chair of the Board for beef and lamb meat.