By Sophie Makris and Diana SimeonovaKIRKOVO,Bulgaria—When seven-year-old Fatmagul Ali picked her first tobacco leaves in 1967, growing the crop seemed like a license to print money. The fall of communism led to the disbanding of cooperative farms and a decline in tobacco production, slowly smoking out what was once Bulgaria’s most valuable asset. With a kilo of dried tobacco leaves costing around 2.50 euros ($2.95), the Alis will make only about 2,300 euros gross this year. “The drop has been drastic”, said Tsvetan Filev, chairman of Bulgaria’s National Tobacco Growers’ Association. EU data from 2014 showed that Italy only had tenth of Bulgaria’s 23,700 tobacco growers, but produced five times as much.

Source: The Standard August 14, 2017 11:36 UTC