Polish farmers today blocked a road in the latest in a long-running series of protests against the government organised by Agrounia, a farmers’ association.
Several dozen tractors and other farming machines formed a blockage on national road number 12, which runs across Poland between the country’s eastern and western borders. Participants held up banners saying “war for the countryside” and “politicians are destroying the Polish countryside”.
Rolnicy domagają się spotkania z premierem @MorawieckiM. By porozmawiać o kłopotach hodowców trzody chlewnej. "Nie możemy sprzedać tuczników, warchlaków, pasza jest droga, mamy ogromne problemy" – mówią #radioZET @AGROunia_ @RadioZET_NEWS https://t.co/YChGVi0AFE pic.twitter.com/8CQc9vIMZb
— Mateusz Szkudlarek (@m_szkudlarek) August 4, 2021
The ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party is “destroying agriculture,” claimed Michał Kołodziejczak, the leader of Agrounia, quoted by Polsat News.
He argued that the price of pork is falling, while production prices are rising, leaving farmers at a growing shorfall. This, he claimed, is the result of the government’s “bad solutions in the fight against African Swine Fever“.
According to preliminary findings of Poland’s national agricultural census, the number of pigs has dropped by 26% since 2010. The number of small farms rearing pigs has also fallen sharply amid repeated onsets of swine diseases since 2014, which have increased costs and regulations required for their keeping.
Farmers are having to pay for more expensive veterinary care, medicine, machines and fertilisers, while inflation – which accelerated to its highest rate in two decades in July – has been more pronounced than elsewhere, said Kołodziejczak.
He noted that his organisation has repeatedly called for a meeting with the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, but he “does not reply to our letters. He pretends not to see the problem”.
Agrounia has declared readiness to extend its protest to 48 hours and move to a larger roundabout at the crossing of national roads 12 and 91 as well as the S8 expressway. The spot is also the site of the organisation’s previous protests that took place on July 20.
In an even larger show of force last year, farmers blocked 100 roads around Poland in protest against a proposed animal protection law that they said threatened their livelihoods. Though strongly supported by PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński, the legislation was ultimately shelved amid a rebellion within the ruling camp.
Main image credit: Agrounia/Facebook (screenshot)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
