The representatives of Regional livestock association, farmers, new entrants, municipalities, district agricultural offices and team of the Business incubator-Gotse Delchev participated in the discussion circle of #NEWBIE project in Kyustendil, Bulgaria on April 2019. Access to land was the focus of it, in particularly access to municipal land in mountainous area. Problems and challenges discussed: farmers could rent less than 1 ha municipal land only for 1 year by a simple procedure, for up to 10 ha they must participate in an open call where small maintain farms cannot compete with large ones. When new entrants and small farmers rent public high land they put a lot of efforts to remove variety of bushes, even threes and stones during their one-year contract and at the end of the year somebody else takes the land ready because could afford to rent more than 10 ha and suggests higher price. Suggested solutions by farmers and the association: to change the BG legislation and enlarge the short-term rent to 3 years at least and some changes in the municipal procedures; to update the municipal registers to be more precise where are arable fields and are grasslands as the mistakes led to penalties for farmers. Possible solution is a large cooperation among small farmers to participate together in open calls and offer the best price and conditions.
The new entrants also discussed the opportunity to be involved in the NEWBIE by registration, exchange of good practice and experience, participation in the contest and networks.
