Duty-free grain imports may be suspended to counter domestic over-supply

Agriculture Minister Jaroslawa Kalinowski said on Thursday that the go vernment may suspend duty-free quotas for wheat imports from the European Union (EU). His warning came weeks ahead of what is expected to be a big harvest, which will add to excess grain stocks already filling the war ehouses of the government's cash-strapped Agricultural Market Agency (ARR). "The situation on the grain market is dramatic. We may need to suspend this quota," Kalinowski told reporters during a visit to the European Parliament in Brussels though he did not say how long the suspension might last. Poland's left-wing coalition, in which Kalinowski's Polish Peasants' Party (PSL) is the junior partner, will discuss the quota suspension next week. Under a so-called "double zero agreement" on food trade liberalization, Poland agreed to import duty-free 460,000 tones of EU wheat this year. In 2001, Poland produced 27 million tones of grain and imported another 2.5 million tones which, according to industry experts, exceeded domestic demand. This year's harvest is forecast only slightly lower at 26 million tones. Kalinowski's announcement came as controversial farmers' leader Andrzej Lepper led a protest to dump imported EU grain at a Warsaw railway depot. (Reuters)