Farmers in Poland issue ultimatum to the government: 'Agriculture is dying quietly'

Several dozen farmers from Masovia organised a picket in Siedlce to express their dissatisfaction with the falling prices of agricultural products and the government's inaction. The protesters appealed to President Karol Nawrocki to veto a ban on fur farming and the so-called chain law, which they said would hit the entire livestock industry.

„We don't want blockades, we want dialogue“, „Solidarność RI“ spokesman Łukasz Komorowski told a press conference. Closing down one sector would set a dangerous precedent, he said, where the law could be used to close down other branches of agriculture.

„Today there is not a single profitable agricultural sector in Poland and the government is allowing the sector to quietly collapse,“ he said, adding that food imports from Mercosur countries would further weaken local producers. Pork from South America would arrive in a matter of weeks, so farmers are indicating what the quality of this pork might be.

Farmers have given the government a deadline of New Year – they are demanding real solutions and negotiations. The impact of the "Green Deal" is being felt in both rural and urban areas, they say, with prices rising and farmers being forced to cut production.

The most worrying issue is the imbalance between farm gate prices and production costs. Grain prices are said to have returned to the levels of thirty years ago, even though costs have increased several-fold. Costs then were 3-4 times lower than now. Livestock farmers point out that the pork and dairy sectors are also declining: „It's a total collapse of agriculture and the government is not responding.

Pig farmers believe that their activities are no longer profitable. „I get twice as much for a fattened pig as I did two years ago, even though the price of meat products in the shops is only going up. Who makes money?“ – wondered one protester.

Milk producers are warning of an uncontrolled influx of raw milk, which they say is not only driving down farm gate prices but also threatening quality. This is the beginning of the end for our farms," said the Jasinski brothers, even though the dairy sector has so far been the only one to deliver significant returns.

The protesters also rejected the claim that there is a surplus of cereals on the market. According to farmers, real demand has been reduced by the mass liquidation of poultry farms due to disease outbreaks. This is not overproduction, but a misdiagnosis," said Tomasz Jurzyk of the trade union Orka.

Farmers argue that without immediate political solutions, agriculture could face an irreversible crisis, with consequences for the whole country.