The optimal dates have begun, however, due to high soil moisture, farmers cannot prepare the fields and sow crops. Vegetable growers have the biggest problems. Many will have losses. And this year’s yields will be late.
The work is going slowly, the optimal agro-term for sowing has expired, and a large number of producers still have not sown their plots. Unfavorable weather conditions and expensive raw materials are the main reason that in the largest BiH sowing of granaries is very late.
“We have fields where it is still not possible to enter because the moisture has been retained and it is not possible to perform quality sowing – producers cannot physically enter with machinery and perform adequate sowing”, points out Dragan Zarić, head of the Department for the provision of professional services in agriculture of the PJ Bijeljina Ministry of RS agriculture.
“We agricultural producers have not had such a difficult sowing for a long time. There is too much moisture in the soil structure and weeds, and we really struggled to prepare the land for sowing corn, which is spread over 27,000 hectares in Semberija. The precipitation that is expected in the coming period will have a bad effect on corn,” says Savo Bakajlić, president of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Semberija and Majevica.
Cold weather and heavy rainfall threatened fruits and vegetables, whose harvest was supposed to start these days. Farmers are pessimistic. The damage, they say, is already evident.
“Strawberries are at least seven days late, which is not a little. But we managed something, the quality is good, now they are ripening. The harvest should start soon. However, they are announcing rain again, which is not good at all for this type,” says producer Đorđe Vakčić.
“We are fighting day and night to manage to sow, prepare food, so that as the biggest granary we don’t run out of food,” Bakajlić points out.
Due to the high prices of raw materials, producers have not applied all agrotechnical measures, and expect lower bread grain yields. The end result, according to the producers, will be losses in domestic production again because the domestic market will rely on imports anyway.
