Lavender in Dobrichka region of Bulgaria: From boom to decline

The lavender harvest is coming up in Dobrichka region. The beautiful purple fields are fewer and fewer and fewer to be found amongst the endless wheat fields in Dobrudja. Official data shows that permanent plantings of the essential oil herb have fallen more than 3 times. In a few days the farmers will go in to harvest a little over 27,000 decares. A few years ago, the aromatic fields reached almost 100,000 decares. According to farmers, there has been a sobering up in the essential oil crop sector, provoked by market, price, stagnant essential oil and no profits. The low purchase offers in recent years, ranging from BGN 40-45/kg to BGN 50/kg, have led to a sharp drop in interest in the aromatic herb and hence to the plowing of permanent plantations. It got to the point where farmers would harvest and throw away the raw green mass because it was much more expensive to get it into the distilleries than the price of the oil. The price levels of 2018 of the order of BGN 250-280/kg ...