Representatives of the public association “Force of Farmers” ask to ban the import of sunflower seeds into Moldova at least until December 31 or farmers’ protests will be inevitable, as they said, IPN reports.

The association informed that a working meeting with traders in grain and oil seeds was held on Monday under the aegis of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry. The discussions centered on the prices of sunflower seeds which the past week fell by about 2 lei per kilogram and are by over 3 lei lower than the quotations on commodity exchanges.

The “Force of Farmers” said the farmers have to sell sunflower seeds at a price that is much lower than the cost price. The scenario with barley and wheat repeats this way. The situation is worsened by the fact that the harvest of crops of the second group is much lower due to drought.

Representatives of the association ascertained that large quantities of sunflower seeds are being imported from Ukraine. “Before the meeting, from a number of sources we received reports that the vegetal oil factory in Balti, which is controlled by the group Trans Oil, already imported nine wagons of raw material from Ukraine and is waiting for the delivery of another 30 wagons. Moreover, we were informed that the enterprise signed a contract for the import of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of sunflower seeds unit the end of 2023. The representatives of Trans Oil who took part in the meeting behaved very arrogantly,” runs the statement.

Immediately after the meeting, the “Force of Farmers” noted that it received verbal information from the Customs Service, according to which in September Trans Oil will import about 15,000-20,000 tonnes of sunflower seeds for the Balti factory.