Polish govt pledges grain surplus cut, farmers protest

Poland’s prime minister has pledged to reduce a grain surplus on the domestic market at talks with farmers last Saturday, a government official says, but union leaders say they were pressing on with weeks of protests.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk held three hours of talks in Warsaw with the farmers, who are demanding a halt to cheap imports and to environmental regulations they say harm their livelihoods.

“The premier told the farmers there will be money available to take several million tonnes of grain off the market,” deputy agriculture minister Michal Kolodziejczak told reporters, suggesting a cut of four to five million tonnes had been proposed.

But Tomasz Obszanski, leader of the NSZZ RI Solidarnosc union for individual farmers, said after the meeting that the protests would continue and would be stronger. “In reality we left the meeting with nothing,” he told reporters.

Andrzej Sobocinski, a farmer from northern Poland, told reporters after taking part in the meeting that dealing with the surplus was not enough.

“If grain keeps flowing from Russia and other countries the problem will persist,” Sobocinski said.

Farmers across the European Union (EU) have been calling for changes to restrictions placed on them by the bloc’s Green Deal plan to tackle climate change, and for the re-imposition of customs duties on imports of agricultural products from Ukraine that were waived after Russia’s invasion in 2022.

Farmers from neighbouring Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, all of which are members of the EU, said the move undercut their prices. Ukraine is not part of the 27-member EU.

Poland has called for an EU ban on imports of Russian and Belarusian agricultural products.

In Warsaw, protests by tens of thousands of farmers and their supporters ended in violent clashes with police this week, and the protesters warned they would bring Poland to a standstill.

The farmers’ leaders had hoped to hold talks with Tusk last Tuesday but said their request was turned down. Tusk, however, invited them to talks last Saturday.

The protests, including blockades of Ukrainian border crossings and disruptions at ports and roads, pose a challenge for the new government led by Tusk.