Sunflower is to be sowed again on Macedonia fields. The initiative was launched by Veles' cooking oil factory Blagoj Gjorev, which is the single sunflower seed manufacturer in the country, and was supported by the Agriculture Ministry, daily Vecer reads.

Following information that Veles' factory guaranteed high quality seed material to farmers and buyout of sunflower by DEN 22 per kilo, a lot of individual producers from Bitola and Prilep region applied to Blagoj Gjorev.

Factory sources announced that transport costs for the farmers would be also provided.

- Interest for sowing of sunflower and concluding deals with the factory was shown by over 600 individual manufacturers so far. They are content from the offered guaranteed buyout price and providing of high quality seed material. This spring, over 5.000 hectares will be sowed, Zlatko Nikolovski, head of a sector for providing raw materials in Veles factory said.

He believes that by the end of April, when the sowing starts, the number of interested farmers will rise.

- This spring we are expecting over 10.000 hectares of Macedonian fields to be sowed with sunflower, while the factory plans to buyout about 15.000 tonnes high quality sunflower seed, Nikolovski said.

The initiative was launched since Macedonia pays huge amounts for purchasing raw oil, despite the country having perfect conditions for sunflower growing.

In 1986, the fields in Bitola, Skopje, Prilep, Kumanovo, Ovce Pole and other regions included sunflower plants covering over 30.000 hectares of land, Vecer reads.

Blagoj Gjorev factory this year bought up a record-breaking 50.000 tonnes high quality sunflower seed, to completely cover the needs for raw material.

Last year, particularly due to poor organisation, this plant was sowed only on 2.850 hectares.

Providing of high quality seed material is expected to return the sunflower on Macedonian fields