The large amounts of rainfall and floods that have affected Bosnia and Herzegovina in recent days will lead to significantly lower yields of cereals, fruits and vegetables, which will directly affect the prices of these products, as well as the lack of domestic production. When you also take into account that sowing was four times more expensive than in previous years, and the placement and purchase price was low, which is why a large number of producers shut down farms and production – it is quite certain that Bosnia and Herzegovina the economy is threatened with collapse.
Depending on the locality, damages are estimated to be from 40 to 100 percent. In the Majevič region, the torrential water completely devastated a large number of plots.
“People lost their corn and wheat, especially strawberries. The damage is enormous, you can’t even count it now, how much effort and resources have been invested. This year, the season began and ended as far as agriculture is concerned,” says farmer Samir Karasuljić.
They were left, they say, with nothing. What was not destroyed by the flood, was destroyed by warm weather and large amounts of precipitation that led to the appearance of plant diseases, which will further reduce yields. Manufacturers are desperate. The sowing never gathers, and the harvest uncertain.
“Now it is four times more expensive – I used to pay about 20,000 for some 350 dulums, and now it has gone to 50,000”, says Savo Bakajlić, president of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Semberija and Majevica.
While the farmers are summing up the damages, the fact, say economists, is of particular concern that due to similar climatic conditions in the surrounding area, we will not be able to import food from the region at favorable prices. First of all, when it comes to bread grain, which makes up 70 percent of our market.
“We do not have commodity reserves with which we could intervene in such situations and stabilize the price of wheat on the market. In addition, we know that domestic wheat accounts for 30-35 percent of the food industry, and we import the rest from Serbia and Hungary – the price of that imported wheat is dictated by the stock market and we cannot influence that,” warns Radenko Pelemiš, president of the Association of Bakers of the Bijeljina region.
Outraged farmers announce the shutdown of production because, they say, none of the authorities is doing anything to protect domestic production.
Imports are uncontrolled, prices are dictated by the stock market and the countries of the region, and the bread harvest is on the threshold and is not certain, given that, as farmer Petar Dragojlović says, all warehouses are full of last year’s wheat harvest: “Go to any mill – everyone will give you to say that those with wheat have nowhere to go, that they are full, that they don’t know what they are going to do, or whether they are going to buy wheat anyway, and they are certainly not interested in the price”.
“What kind of math is it that I invest in production, that I don’t have a country behind me, that I don’t know where it will be, what the price will be?” There is no more – that was and always was. There were 15,000 of us, and now there are 1,000-2,000 producers in Semberija. This is heading for disaster,” Bakajlić adds.
Bad weather conditions and a reduction in production will lead to a shortage of agricultural products, which inevitably leads to an increase in prices. Agricultural production in BiH is largely based on imports, which, according to analysts, could be an alibi for importers for additional price increases.
“We will rarely be able to expect an employer to have socially responsible work and business, to assess the situation and accordingly form the prices of their goods. Everyone will try to take advantage of the situation and earn as much as possible. But, on the other hand, responsible states create a situation to eliminate the monopolies that create the conditions,” explains political analyst Milenko Stanić.
The consumer basket in BiH, by all accounts, could become a bag. Producers and citizens now expect a reaction from the authorities. So far, in a whole series of inflationary shocks, they have not received it.
