in Poland, farmers show their anger against Ukrainian imports

Polish and Ukrainian agriculture ministers meet on Wednesday in a context of agricultural crisis across Europe.

Alarm sirens, yellow vests, forest of white and red national flags, but no tractor in sight at least for the moment. On Tuesday, 10,000 Polish farmers gathered in Warsaw to demand an end to imports of agri-food products from Ukraine but also the revision of the European Green Deal.

The agricultural crisis continues between Poland and Ukraine with a meeting planned for Wednesday, February 28, between the agriculture ministers of the two neighboring countries. Poland has been among Ukraine’s biggest supporters since the launch of the Russian offensive, but trade relations have been stormy due to Brussels’ opening of European borders to Ukrainian agricultural products.

“We are below production costs”

Lukasz Biernat, who cultivates around a hundred hectares including 60 of cereals and sugar beets in the Warsaw region, warns: “Today is a warning. If nothing happens, on March 6, we enter Warsaw by tractor. We block Warsaw, like Paris was.”

Before continuing: “I can’t sell my wheat and my rapeseed, I keep it because I can’t find a buyer at a fair price. We are below production costs. Last year we had subsidies for supposedly balance all that, but we don’t want subsidies from the EU or the government, we want decent prices, which suit us.”

In question, competition from Ukrainian products, supposed to transit through Poland. But this restriction is purely theoretical: the local market is flooded, say farmers who also criticize European standards and a green pact which nevertheless spares the agricultural sector. Stefan Graczyk is a cattle breeder near Poznan: “The Green Deal provides for the reduction of production in Europe with the reduction of pesticides and fertilizers. But people are not going to eat less! Quite simply, we are going to import from abroad, from South America or Ukraine. “

“We need each other”

Roads and border crossings blocked, cargo scattered on the ground, plus a few pro-Russian banners: the affair turns into a diplomatic crisis between kyiv and Warsaw, although they are allies against Putin. And it puts pressure on the new Prime Minister Donald Tusk: “Brussels, as well as kyiv, must understand that maintaining the current situation is unacceptable for hundreds of thousands of hard-working people in Poland and Europe. We must find a solution that will not harm Ukraine but Polish farmers cannot be its victims. It would be the greatest idiocy in the history of our nations to quarrel now, because we need each other like never before.”

So the two capitals talk to each other. The proof again on Wednesday. But we are “far from an agreement” recognizes Warsaw in this grain war which is being played out in the shadow of the war in Ukraine, and which now extends beyond Polish borders.