The protection against hailstorms covers 1.1 million acres of farmland on the territory of Haskovo district. This was announced by the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, Desislava Taneva during the opening event for a command point for the control of hailstorms in Haskovo. She specified that in the last 3 years the funds for the modernisation of the system for protection against hailstorms amount to more than 13 million BGN. “These are the first investments made after 1989 for increasing the coverage of the protected areas and investing in protection against hailstorms”, said the Minister of the agriculture. Desislava Taneva added also that until the end of May another command point in Tazha village will be opened and will have 23 rocket sites. “Furthermore the already existing command points in the county will have 13 new sites” she said. According to her, more than 30% of the farmlands in the country fall within the scope of the protection against hailstorms.
The total value of the command point in Haskovo and the rocket sites is around 1 million BGN. Minister Taneva said that from more than 1.5 million acres of farmland, 1.1 million acres will be protected from hailstorms from tonight. “The protection in the unprotected territory will be done with aeroplanes, but this will happen only if there is shared financial responsibility between the county and the farmers”, insisted Taneva.
Desislava Taneva said that the completely destroyed areas in the county from the beginning of the year because of hailstorms are in the amount of 72 thousand acres. This data is up to date from the processed protocols of the investigated areas. “Right now the committees continue to survey the land. Experts enter the affected agricultural area when the water is drained, and the rate of failure can be determined on the crops” explained minister Taneva. She recalled that the state applies a notified state aid to compensate for the costs when the lands are 100% failed. The aid is in the amount of 4 million BGN. “Higher compensation will be paid to farmers who have insurance because this is state aid, not an insurance mechanism,” said the minister of agriculture.
Present on the official opening of the command point were engineer VanioSlaveev, executive director of the Executive Agency for Hail Suppression (EAHS) and NadezhdaTakieva, director of the Regional Directorate for Hail Suppression in Haskovo