Harvest 2023 – with goodness in the heart, with love in the field

The official opening of the 2023 harvest campaign and the ceremonial start of the rye harvest under the project “Bread of Peace” took place today, 28 June 2023. The motto of Harvest 2023 is “With kindness in the heart, with love in the field”.

Traditionally, every year a representative of the National Association of Grain Producers (NAGP) from a different region of the country hosts the event. This year the harvest started in the village of Borisovo, in the fields of the farmer Plamen Genchev, who is a member of the Regional Farmers Union – Danube Grain – Ruse.

The guest of the event was the Minister of Agriculture and Food, Kiril Vatev. The opening of Harvest 2023 took place under the motto “With kindness in the heart, with love in the field”.

“At the core of the campaign is the idea that kindness and love for the land keep us standing despite the storms and help us endure hardships stoically,” believes Iliya Prodanov, Chair of the NAGP.

Along with the National Opening of the Harvest Campaign, the ceremonial start of the rye harvest under the international project “Bread of Peace” was also carried out.

The “Bread of Peace” project is a European initiative involving twelve countries from Central and Eastern Europe, among which is Bulgaria. For the first time in 2012, the rye harvested from the field around the Church of Reconciliation in Berlin – the site of the former “death strip” of the Berlin Wall, was sent to each participating country.

Since 2013, the rye seeds from the field around the Church of Reconciliation in Berlin have been grown in symbolic and historically significant places of turning points in the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe that joined the European Union after 1989.

In 2014, when 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall were marked, a symbolic part of the rye harvests from the participating countries in the project was sent for the first time to Berlin. This “anniversary rye” was mixed with the rye collected in Berlin, milled and baked into a common European “Bread of Peace”.

The “Bread of Peace” project is organized with the support of the Federal Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection of Germany and the agricultural ministries of the participating countries.  Besides Germany, it includes 11 other EU Member States from Central and South-Eastern Europe: Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Croatia.

The National Association of Grain Producers (NAGP) has been the official partner for Bulgaria in the Project since its very beginning. Every year a representative of the National Association of Grain Producers from a different region of the country takes on the cultivation of the rye.

Photos © - NAGP

The team of “Plant Protection” wishes you a successful harvest!