- The first stage of consultations on changes to the Act on the Agricultural Protection Fund has been completed
- Currently, another draft bill is being prepared to amend the Act on the Agricultural Protection Fund, which will be submitted for repeated consultations.
- Farmers demand that FOR aid not be included in the de minimins aid pool
- Cooperative members and producers gathered in associations will probably also be protected.
A meeting was held at the Ministry of Agriculture regarding proposed changes to the Agricultural Protection Fund. Agricultural and industry organizations and farmers showed up. However, there were only a few of the latter.
We keep talking about how much needs to change in agriculture, but there are still no farmers at meetings devoted to this – says Paweł Jaruga from the Twitter Farmers Party, a farmer from the Lublin province, in an interview with Farmer. – It is worth uniting in such matters – he argues.
The farmer emphasizes that the issue of the Agricultural Protection Fund is very important, and the voice of farmers themselves must be heard more in this matter. Especially since not all organizations related to agriculture are in agreement on the subject of the Fund.
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The Polish Milk Chamber sees no point in FOR
The Polish Milk Chamber sees no greater sense in its existence.
The Polish Chamber of Milk has repeatedly stated that the establishment of this fund makes no sense. First of all, the fund is a para-tax, which in the case of dairy cooperatives burdens the farmers themselves, which they have to pay for dishonest contractors from other industries – says Agnieszka Maliszewska, director of the Polish Chamber of Milk, in an interview with Farmer. – Each additional financial burden reduces our competitiveness on the EU market, where there are no such burdens – she adds.
Maliszewska points out that the only reasonable solution, from the point of view of the dairy industry, is to separate the individual sectors so that each branch of agriculture contributes to its own security.
At today's prices for raw materials, farmers also feel this type of burden. Such a fund might have a reason to exist if it was only and exclusively a sector fund. And it is not, so the milk producer must be responsible for insolvent companies purchasing, for example, raspberries – he says in an interview with farmer.pl – That is why we have been in favor of liquidating this fund from the very beginning.
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The dairy cooperatives' opinion is not shared by organizations related to agricultural production. They clearly state that farmers cannot be left to their own devices, and the Fund is often the only chance for them to avoid bankruptcy.
I am surprised that the dairy industry is at the forefront of this crusade in the fight against the safety of Polish farmers. The richest and best-standing industry of all agricultural industries – says Łukasz Zbonikowski, president of the National Audit Union of Agricultural Production Cooperatives, in an interview with Farmer. – I admire and respect them for having achieved such fortunes and careers that they even own castles and helicopters, but the fact that they demand that the security measures be removed from the farmers they live off, I do not understand.
As Zbonikowski emphasizes, the Fund must exist, and if we were to give up something, it would be the promotion funds.
I support the functioning of one fund and the other, but if we were to give up something, it would be marketing, not the safety and existence of farms – he emphasizes in an interview with Farmer. – I wonder what this is about. Is it about faster and more frequent bankruptcy of farmers, in order to take over their assets and invest their huge profits? Or simply according to the principle, the worse the better on the market? I am shocked by this attitude of my dairy colleagues. All the more so because history has shown that dairies have gone bankrupt and were insolvent, such as Bielmek – adds Zbonikowski. – I appeal to my dairy colleagues to come to their senses. This is not the way and certainly the part of the promille that they will save after the reform that is proposed will not affect their condition in any way, and will cause a lot of harm and human drama on the Polish market – he sums up.
The meeting at the ministry was quite emotional. What was established?
According to the ministry, the following was declared at the consensus conference:
- withdrawal from the proposal to delete the possibility of paying compensation in the event of non-payment for agricultural products sold to purchasing entities deleted from CEIDG;
- recognition of agricultural producers who are members of agricultural producer groups and farmers' cooperatives as entitled to apply for compensation for lack of payment for agricultural products sold to purchasing entities that have become insolvent.
Currently, a draft act amending the Act on the Agricultural Protection Fund is being prepared for repeated consultations.
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Farmers divided into better and worse. All because of the Agricultural Protection Fund
