- The system for estimating drought losses has been controversial for years.
- Farmers have been talking to successive governments, but there has been no change.
- There is also a lack of will to talk on the part of the ministry.
- The establishment of a drought team that would work on solutions for estimating losses was announced with great fanfare. The team even formed. Its work is worse.
- The farmers held their last meeting on May 28. Since then, they have been trying to hold another meeting, without success.
Representatives of the Grassroots Nationwide Farmers' Protest, who were supposed to work on the farmers' side in the drought team, showed a number of irregularities in the functioning of the loss estimation system. A significant part of them concerned the functioning of the drought application, which, as is widely known, is inefficient.
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Dry application to the bin?
Farmers point out that the drought application incorrectly calculates the percentage of losses in farms (which does not correspond to the estimates of municipal commissions). Examples include situations in which neighbouring crops have a completely different degree of damage estimation, as well as situations in which the estimates prepared by insurance companies differ significantly from the application calculations.
IUNG itself admitted that the application does not work as it should, that they are not able to determine the level of losses on grasslands – says Emil Mieczaj, a farmer from the West Pomeranian province. – As a result of incorrect data from the application, many farms do not exceed these magical 30% losses, and therefore do not qualify for aid. We do not want to beg the ministry for alms every year, because you cannot live on alms. We want systemic solutions that will prevent us from facing the same problem every year – he adds.
Farmers have asked the ministry to provide the source codes of the drought application, or at least the algorithms responsible for the logical layer of the application and to work on the calculations of losses in connection with the occurrence of drought on specific (approx. 10 farms) examples indicated by the social side. This action is aimed at verifying the way the application works and pointing out specific errors. However, the ministry is not keen on this idea.
We were informed that the ministry cannot provide us with the data because it is the property of the Central Information Technology Centre (COI), appointed by the Minister of Computerisation to administer the drought application, and therefore the Ministry of Agriculture has no possibility of using it – says Agnieszka Beger, a farmer from Wielkopolska. – It's as if they didn't want this application to work, to be a real tool – she says, irritated.
As indicated by the representatives of OOPR, there are many problems with the application. Starting from its freezing, through unwritten applications hanging in the application, disappearing subtypes of crops and areas when saving reports by municipal committees, saving an incorrect date of estimation +/- one day, to the message in saved reports generated by municipal committees when they were approved "previously entered % of losses zeroed out".
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Drought drains state budget and farmers' pockets
Farmers want the ability to appeal drought application results
The social side has requested a number of changes. These include allowing for appeals against application calculations.
We want to be able to appeal the results of calculations from the application – says Emil Mieczaj. – We can appeal the commission reports, so we do not understand why the reports from the application are final – he adds. – Especially since most of them are to the disadvantage of the farmer. We want the level of crop estimation to be visible in the application throughout the entire period of damage estimation – he says.
IUNG emphasizes that the drought monitoring system is becoming more and more developed year by year. The goal is to obtain data covering an area of 5×5 m. This could take up to two years, which is why farmers are appealing to switch off the drought application for that time and return to the system of estimating damage by commissions. The second method could be to take the arithmetic mean of the application result and the local commission result. The differences between the results of these estimates are often very large. Averaging them would be a kind of solution that would allow for fair treatment of farmers.
– The application is based on incomplete data – emphasizes Urszula Suchocka, a farmer from the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship. – Currently, IUNG does not have groundwater level maps (a map of the first aquifer, no report on the groundwater level), which is essential when examining drought in the TUZ. We have requested that one of the mandatory parameters taken into account by the drought application be the groundwater level based on data from hydrogeological maps. Until this parameter is implemented, the drought application should only be an aid in assessing drought in a given area, and not the main criterion for the degree of its occurrence. Otherwise, in the areas affected by depression cones of open-pit mines, the results provided by the drought application will be false – she adds.
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It is already known when farmers will receive drought aid for 2024
What is drought? Proper definition still missing
The fundamental issue raised by farmers is the definition of drought itself.
At the moment, the definition of drought does not include, among other things, thermal stress or lack of rainfall during growth periods, and these are the basic factors that affect crops – emphasizes Emil Mieczaj. – These are topics that we have been returning to for years, and neither the previous government nor the current one wants to do anything about it. The ministry has not worked on anything in these 9 months. On social media, we see that one minister is bored. We have the impression that the rest are too. We have managed to harvest crops, cultivate them, sow new ones. And the ministry is still stuck in one place and does not find time for a meeting – he adds.
Farmers emphasize that all drought-related problems are broken down into one common point – the lack of an efficient insurance system. Many companies do not want to insure drought at all, and if they do, the premiums are horrendously high. It often happens that the premium amount is much higher than the potential compensation.
The crop insurance system should be mandatory for everyone, uniform and provide the possibility of insuring crops against all adverse weather conditions, including drought, on more favourable terms – says Mieczaj. – Above all, we need this. Security. In the current system, losses of 40% barely cover the premium. So why insure yourself? – he asks.
There are many things to work on, as you can see. However, there is no action in sight. Farmers are irritated by the ministry's inaction.
– During the protests, we heard that problems are solved at the table, not in the street. Only the ministry does not have such a desire – sums up Agnieszka Beger. – They talk nicely about the need for talks, but they do not feel that their words will become actions. And we are left with the same problem for another season – she adds.
