The scavengers will arrive in Vilnius "with their contents". What plan have the Samogitians prepared for the ministers? (VIDEO)

On 14 May at 11:00 a.m. in Vilnius (near the Ministry of Agriculture), the Telšiai District Farmers' Union is organising a public protest, during which farmers are going to present to the authorities a symbolic „manure management plan“.

Organisers say it will be not only a protest, but also a practical demonstration of why the current manure management plan requirements are, in their view, excessive, expensive and have no real impact on farming decisions.

According to the initiators of the campaign, the main problem lies not in the environmental ambition itself, but in the bureaucratic system that forces farmers to draw up documents that do not bring any practical benefit to the farm.

Farmers stress that they are not opposed to order or environmental requirements, but say they can no longer put up with "sham control", where paper plans take precedence over real agronomic decisions. If a manure application plan does not influence real decisions, it should not be binding," say the protest organisers.

Farmers say the current system has become difficult to understand even for the authorities themselves. Under the current regime, fertilisation plans become compulsory for farms that fertilise more than 30 hectares of land and exceed the prescribed nitrogen limits. At the same time, some of the requirements apply differently to different crops. In some cases, farms of the same size and with similar activities are required to draw up plans, while others are not.

According to the requirements in force in Lithuania, manure and slurry must not contribute more than 170 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare per year to the soil.

The protest organisers point out that this system often duplicates existing accounting and has no real impact on either yields or the environment.

Ahead of the protest, a meeting between the authorities and farmers took place at the end of last week. Afterwards, some compromises and possible changes were discussed, but farmers in the Telšiai district have no plans to call off the action.

Due to the limited space in the centre of the capital, the number of machines will be limited, so arriving farmers are invited to register in advance. The organisers of the campaign urge everyone to remain united and stress that this is not just a question of individual farms, but of the future of Lithuanian farmers as a whole.

„Agrobitė play“ channel's editor-in-chief Gediminas Stanišauskas spoke to both Dainius Dargius, a farmer from Telšiai region, and Regina Bernatoniene, a farmer from Kaunas region.

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