Europe: Brussels about to ban Bulgaria’s favourite tomatoes

Some of the most popular Bulgarian vegetable varieties may soon find themselves banned from production and sale in the EU. If the document is accepted without changes, the output of Bulgarian small growers will be threatened, and they themselves - denied the right to produce and market some of the most colourful and delicious local varieties of peppers and pink tomatoes.

The new regulation is still under discussion, but given that the Bulgarian government did not intervene and challenge the project in Brussels, there is an absolute real danger that the consumers' darling pink tomato "Buffalo Heart" will become a rarity and will be grown only in countryside backyards.

Other local varieties of fruit and vegetables are also threatened with the same sentence.

"If this regulation gets adopted, these varieties may be removed from consumer use and this would result in the loss of valuable genetic material," Institute for Plant Genetic Resources director Tencho Tcholakov told bTV. The institute has appealed to the Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture to intervene and protect the Bulgarian interest in this case.

Source: standartnews.com