Fees and insurance for cargo in the Black Sea have risen fivefold since the drone attacks, grain producers from the Dobrich region said. Grain is struggling to leave the country, and wheat prices in Bulgaria are falling.
The fivefold figure comes from official statistics, said Radostina Zhekova, chair of the Dobrudzha Union of Grain Producers.
Wheat prices have dropped since the strikes on ships. A tonne now costs $220, against $230 to $260 a year ago. More than 5m tonnes of wheat, mostly meant for shipment by sea, cannot be exported.
Warehouses of producers in the Dobrich region are full. Their harvest is sold, but it is not clear when it will be loaded. Grain is usually loaded at Varna and Burgas and shipped through the Bosphorus to Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt. In Europe, Italy, Spain and Portugal buy Bulgarian wheat.
Sunflower and maize also find buyers on the home market, but wheat is grown for export, about 5m tonnes of it. So producers will have to sell the stored harvest in Bulgaria at a lower price.
Vasil Simov, chair of the Sofia Commodity Exchange, links the price fall to the large volumes in Bulgaria that cannot be shipped out. Higher costs for fuel, electricity and labour are offset by cheaper wheat, so he expects bread to get slightly dearer or to hold its price.
Insurance is not the only risk, says Adrian Nikolov of the Institute for Market Economics. Freight forwarders, the firms that organise transport, may refuse to work on this route. Even if there is an insurer, there may be no ship or crew for the trip.
The sector wants a safe corridor in the Black Sea. Without one, producers warn, losses will be huge.
In October, agriculture minister Plamen Abrovski said ships to and from Bulgaria had not been turned away and that the situation at the ports of Varna and Burgas was calm. He said no emergency steps are needed for grain trade across the Black Sea.
The farming co-operative in Paskalevo is also working for export. Its chair, Neli Stoyanova, said the harvest was sold in the middle of last month to free up warehouse space for the next crop. The co-operative expects the ships to arrive around the middle of this month.