Government bows to farmers protests and intervenes in meat market

Farmers, who have been staging roadblocks across the country have begun to win their protest as the government has decided to intervene to prop up the price of pork. The Agricultural Market Agency (ARR) will buy 50,000 tones of pork worth over zl. 230 million. Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kalinowski told farmers' groups that such an option was likely already a week ago. Now he claims that intervention in such a form is the optimum one and should satisfy farmers. Analysts expect that the pork surpluses should peak at 150,000 tones in the first half of the year, which the Agency claims to be prepared for. (Rzeczpospolita, p. B3) M.M.