While BiH imports about 2,500 tons of gherkins and cucumbers annually, domestic farmers are throwing theirs away

Thousands of gherkin growers in Bosnia and Herzegovina are in a panic after the European Union reduced demand for this agricultural product from our country in order to protect domestic producers. This has caused huge surpluses of this agricultural product in BiH. Some growers from BiH are forced to throw away tons of gherkins, even though they are of the highest quality, because gherkins cannot wait long for processing after harvesting.

Producers in Krajina, the Tuzla Canton, in the areas around Doboj, as well as gherkin growers from other parts of BiH are affected.

Meanwhile, gherkin processing plants in renowned BiH companies such as Agrokomerc from Velika Kladuša and other food industries in the country are on standby. They lie unused. Experts warn that the state only needed to invest a little effort and financial resources, and all the surplus gherkins grown this year in BiH could have been processed and placed on the domestic market, if they could no longer be placed on the shelves of foreign supermarkets. 

There is plenty of room for domestic products. Bosnia and Herzegovina imports tons of pickled gherkins annually from Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, and other countries. According to data from the state statistical agency, BiH imported about 2,500 tons of gherkins and cucumbers in 2009. This has not changed much today.

Therefore, other countries protect their agricultural producers by banning the import of agricultural products from other countries. The ban lasts until domestic farmers sell their goods. This is not the case with Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

Nedžad Bićo from the Association of Farmers of FBiH told the Patria News Agency that about 7,000 families are currently engaged in gherkin cultivation in BiH, meaning about 30,000 people in the country live off gherkin cultivation.
After the EU reduced imports from BiH, tons of gherkins will go to waste. Growers have nowhere to put them, so they have to throw away part of the production. And what they throw away, they cannot get paid for. 

- All of this is happening because Bosnia and Herzegovina, i.e., the Ministry of Trade, the Ministry of Agriculture, and other competent institutions, have no strategy. The state has not only not invested a single fening in gherkin cultivation, but it is also doing nothing to protect those who have developed this agricultural production with their own funds – says Bićo.

If the state does not help overcome the current crisis, he warns, many growers will lose their jobs and cease further production.

Gherkin cultivation in BiH has experienced an expansion in recent years. It is a cultivation that does not require large areas, which is suitable for BiH conditions, where land is fragmented into smaller plots. For a few months of work during spring and summer, even small growers can earn a solid annual salary. One dunum of land yields between eight and ten tons of gherkins. Considering that the purchase price of gherkins last year was about 1 KM per kilogram, it is clear that growers can earn about 10,000 KM per dunum. Now all of this could go to waste due to the stepmotherly attitude of the authorities in BiH towards their own producers, writes Patria.