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[MattSh]

5. The Good Fight of the Polish Farmers | New Eastern Outlook

Poland’s farmers are in a very important and very good fight with their government and with their parliament. They are literally fighting for the future health and safety of their families, their grandchildren’s generation, their countrymen and even for the health and safety of the rest of the European Union that believes they have a right to enjoy eating healthy, nutritious food. That’s good and in my view should get more attention for the good it is.

In the week of February 12, all across Poland, thousands of farmers with tractors protested the right-wing Polish government’s planned farm legislation. Many were organized by the farmers’ arm of the Solidarność trade union organization. More than 150 tractors have blockaded the A2 motorway into Warsaw since February 3, hundreds more have closed roads and are picketing governmental offices in other regions. The farmers are vowing to continue the struggle until the government agrees to enter talks with the union and commit to addressing what they see as a crisis in Polish agriculture. And they are right.

ICPPC directors, Jadwiga Lopata and Julian Rose, joined more than 200 farmers at a Solidarity protest in Kielce, South East Poland. The actions represent a dramatic escalation of protests that have been taking place on a smaller scale across the country over the last year. Edward Kosmal, chairman of the farmers protest committee for West-Pomeranian Region said: “We are ready for dialogue. We look forward to meeting with you Prime Minister and beginning a comprehensive government commitment to solving the problems of Polish agriculture. If you do not enter into a dialogue with the Union, we would be forced to tighten our forms of protest.”

What is of vital importance are the demands of the farmers to the new government of Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz. They are four:

• Land rights: implement regulation to prevent land-grabs by Western companies and to protect family farmers’ rights to land. Beginning 2016 the government plans to allow foreign buyers to buy Polish farmland for the first time.

• Legalize direct sales of farm produce: the government must take action to improve farmers’ position in the market, including the adoption of a law enabling direct sales of processed and unprocessed farm products (Right now Poland has the most exclusionary policies in Europe around on-farm processing of food products and direct sales, making it impossible for family farmers to compete with bigger food companies. Oppressive ‘food hygiene’ and other regulations effectively prevent small scale farmers from selling their produce on-farm and in local markets, where their mostly organic but ‘uncertified’ produce is widely respected as of higher quality than food gown on modern industrial agribusiness farms.

• Ban the cultivation and sale of Genetically Modified Organisms in Poland. A new EU rule passed in the European Parliament in January essentially leaves it up to national governments to permit GMO planting or not.

• Extend inheritance laws to include land under lease as a fully legal form of land use.

Complete story at - http://journal-neo.org/2015/03/11/the-good-fight-of-the-polish-farmers/