Wheat harvest starts in Serbia, farmers like quality of grain, but worry about price: "Can you live on this?"

Wheat harvest has started in Serbia's Macva region, and for now, farmers are only handing over the grains to silos.

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They still can't sell their wheat because the price is not yet known.

It is this "small" unknown that disturbs the satisfaction with the yield and quality of this year's crop. Wheat has had a good year and depending on the applied agro-technical measures, is yielding between 5 and 8 tons per hectare or more, but it will depend on the buying price whether farmers will be able to cover production costs and earn some money.

"I just leave it in the silo for storage, I'm not selling it yet. Nothing is known yet about the price, they say it will be 35-40 dinars. That is low compared to the costs. Realistically, 50 dinars per kilogram would be a fair price," says Dragan Ostojic, a farmer from Klenje.

Zivorad Jockovic from Dublje says that he did everything from sowing to harvest in his field and does not hide satisfaction with the fact that the yield is over 8 tons per hectare. Apart from the fact that the yield is good, he also got the expected grain quality, with high hectoliter and low moisture.

He recalls that last year the buying price at harvest time was 22 dinars per kilogram, and that until recently, millers were paying 40 dinars for last year's wheat.

"This year's wheat should be at least as much. That price is not even twice as high, and some costs have gone several times higher. Starting with seeds, through fertilizers that went up from 4,000 to 12,000, then fuel that goes up every Friday, to spare parts. If the price is lower than 40 dinars per kilogram, as our ancestors used to say - there will be no bread for farmers," Jockovic concluded.

Whatever the farmers wish for, the price of this year's wheat will still be determined by the market. In a situation when last year's wheat stocks are still in the silos and while exports are slowing down, farmers hope that the state will offer a fair price as it buys grains for commodity reserves.

(Telegraf Biznis)