Poland, Farmers in a Grain Feud

WARSAW —  Polish farmers angry about competition from foreign grain imports have been blocking roads in protest, and they’re threatening to escalate their actions in mid-September if their demands are not met.

But the government of Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek, concerned about Poland’s international obligations and a future bid for European Union membership, is vowing not to cave in.

The dispute reflects deep troubles in Polish agriculture, which employs 27% of Poland’s work force but contributes only 6% of its economic output.

Experts and government officials here say that before joining the EU, and its mix of competition and subsidies, Poland should drastically restructure its agricultural sector by reducing the work force and increasing the number of large and efficient farms.

But farmers, who in many cases may be the main victims of that process, are fighting these changes, demanding instead that more taxpayer money be spent to ensure that they can make ends meet.

Janusz Maksymiuk, leader of the National Union of Farmers’ Circles, said at a Warsaw news conference this week that the protests have already achieved results, including a sevenfold increase in the volume of grain purchased by the state, acceptance of lower-quality grain, and payment guarantees for farmers.

For several weeks, farmers have blocked roads or railway tracks to press their demands. In one such incident in Muszyna, on the border with Slovakia, protesting farmers raided 20 train cars to dump imported wheat, corn, barley and rye from Hungary and Slovakia onto the tracks.

A few days after that protest, the government set new customs rules establishing a minimum “threshold price” for grain imports, meaning higher taxes on low-cost grain.

*

This week, the government threatened tougher moves against protesters who block road and rail traffic; they previously faced the threat of court action but not physical removal by police.

An alliance of farm unions has called for farmers to suspend their protests so that vacationers will not be angered by road blockages as they return home from traditional August holidays. But the joint statement added, “We are not surrendering,” it and called for even bigger protests if the government does not enter “serious talks” by Sept. 10.

The unions say that prices for grain bought by the state must be raised further, that rules on the quality of grain are still too strict and that the new import taxes are too low and allow too much foreign grain to enter the country.

Marian Zagorny, a protest leader, charged that reports of steep reductions in the quantity of grain entering Poland since establishment of the threshold price system are not true.

“Just in one day, Aug. 11, 70 rail cars with imported grain passed through the border crossing in Muszyna,” Zagorny said. “The importers hide the grain in rail cars that usually transport cattle, and that’s why part of it goes unregistered.”

But Interior Minister Janusz Tomaszewski has warned that a ban on imports “would be incompatible with our international agreements” and “would be harmful for the economy and also agriculture.”

Agriculture Minister Jacek Janiszewski said Thursday that the vehemence of the protests partly reflects political maneuvering before local elections set for Oct. 11.

“I am not saying this was the only reason, but definitely it played a role in the escalation of the protests,” Janiszewski said. “From the information I have received, a lot of the people blocking the roads have nothing to do with agriculture.”

But Janiszewski also admitted mistakes in the process of grain procurement by the government’s Agricultural Market Agency, which “did not transfer the buying quotas to places where they were really needed.”

Problems in agriculture are contributing to a growing sense that Poland may not be able to join the EU as quickly as many here had hoped.

An often-cited target date for Poland’s entry has been Jan. 1, 2002. But recently, expectations have been slipping, with 2003 seen as the earliest possible date, and, according to reports in the Polish media, many experts in Brussels now say membership is more likely to come around 2006.

Ela Kasprzycka of The Times’ Warsaw Bureau contributed to this report.