Armchair farmers “will rip off EU”

Poland has not yet joined the European Union and it wants to leave already. During his first visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Andrzej Lepper announced that if he does not like the EU, he is leaving. It is his right. He may even not enter it at all, but he should get out on his own and allow all those who want to stay – to stay. But this is Lepper, and we managed to get used to his ways. The question is whether Europe will get used to him just as easily. The general tone of the speeches by the politicians from Poland during this first joint sitting in Strasbourg was a little bit surprising. It sounded like re-vindication. From the Left to the Right, everybody talked about historical obligations and crossing the divisions. Speakers demanded more money, most of all for farmers. It would be good if the farmers got more money, but it may be worth determining who exactly will receive it. During my last report from the Polish countryside, I was looking for those farmers in whose name Lepper and others fight for money from the EU. I wanted to find the so-called small-landholding peasants (chłop małorolny), who farm one or two hectares of land and live solely from that. I found less of them than taxi drivers who own 10 hectares, but do not farm them at all. They pay (sometimes) the incredibly low social security fees for farmers, and they enjoy many benefits from the status of a farmer. I found many inhabitants of Warsaw, Poznań or Gdańsk, who bought five hectares of land and became “farmers” despite never actually leaving the city. Their numbers increase, while I have not found any of those about whom Lepper and other peasant politicians talk so much. In Poland, someone who owns one – let me repeat, one hectare of land – is classified as a farmer. It is an obvious absurdity, since no-one can live off one hectare. There are some farmers who have three or four, and they find it difficult. Usually they have to take another job, so they are not de facto farmers any more. Opinions that the EU is mean and does not care for the Polish, Czech or Hungarian farmers are partly supported by reality. I understand, though, that the taxpayers from the current member states would like to know who they pay and what for. And this is still a mystery. Why should a taxi driver from Olsztyn receive agricultural subsidies only because he has a piece of land he inherited from his grandfather, land which he never farmed? Why should a doctor or a solicitor from Warsaw get money from the EU for their allotments, which they visit twice a year? I met such farmers; therefore, I understand the EU’s doubts. They have more in common with rational economy than meanness. The Polish agriculture sector has been living in fiction – limbo-land – for many years. No-one knows for sure how many farmers there are and how many farms. No-one knows how to classify those who eat and use everything they produce and do not put anything on the market, or the taxi drivers and inhabitants of the cities who own a piece of land in the country. No-one tries to make it clear, and there are no plans to do it in the future. The new agriculture law, despite promises, does not exist, and it is still unknown when it will be ready. Many Polish politicians sustain this fiction by making unrealistic and populist demands. These farmers really lose because of that. I mean those who work hard and invest every złoty they make in a new barn or modern equipment, in line with EU conditions and standards. I met many such farmers, and I bow my head before them. During the last few years they achieved an incredible leap in technology and quality and, most of all, in mentality. They deserve to join the EU on advantageous conditions. In a few years they achieved something that took western European farmers decades. They are dynamic and have nothing to be ashamed of. But they are afraid of unfair competition they will have to face after accession. Seventeen months before entry they still do not know what the new conditions will be for their business. How can they know, when they are constantly thrown into the same “bag” with all the farms which have no chance of survival and with my taxi driver, doctor and solicitor, who are all farmers only on paper? And the guilt for this lack of knowledge and for unequal conditions lies with politicians and mainly with those who regard themselves as representing peasants. Maintaining the fiction about Polish agriculture and spreading myths about more than two million farms is evil. It hits those who really want to work in the country and invest in their future. Because the real picture of the agriculture sector has been confused, no constructive plans for its development can be made. No-one in Poland has an idea on how agriculture should look like a few years after accession. Should there be a majority of small or rather large farms? What should their production profiles be? If such studies exist, they have never been publicly presented. One thing is sure: part of the existing farms must disappear. Perhaps it would be better to sort them out from those which are capable of survival on the market. Perhaps for some of them – the weaker ones – some assistance could be devised. It would not be part of the agriculture subsidies all the Polish negotiators fight for so desperately. The division would then be clear and the money more impressive. And the taxi driver would live on driving people around, the doctor on treating his patients, and agriculture subsidies would reach the real farmers. Bernard Rousser is the Poland correspondent for Agence France-Presse and Le Figaro.