Seeing the EU in action
The reporter traveled to Rzeczyca, a village about a three-hour drive south-east of Warsaw. In its primary school classroom on a chilly November evening, he found 40 burly farmers crammed into children's chairs learning about what the EU's common agricultural policy can do for them. They were being instructed on how to claim subsidies by a trainer from the Agency for the Restructuring and Modernization of Agriculture (ARiMR), who exhorted the farmers to be businessmen and to understand what does and does not pay. The ARiMR aims to get all two million Polish farmers up to speed by early next year, and then the farmers will have until either May 15 or June 15 (the deadline is still being negotiated) to submit their forms and receive payments estimated at zł.200 (€43) per hectare. These payments will be 25 percent of what farmers in the EU currently get, and will increase gradually to 100 percent over the next ten years.
Merging Polish farmers into the system in place in the rest of the EU does, however, raise certain unique problems. First, the application system has been simplified for Poland which, paradoxically, makes things more complicated. As they will be paid by the amount of land under cultivation (not the direct payment system in the rest of the EU), each farmer will have to show clear legal title to their land. Small farms are often made up of slivers of land passed down through the generations; one farmer in Rzeczyca pointed out that his four hectares has over a dozen disconnected pieces, all of which he must prove he legally owns. Secondly, to get the money all farmers will have to open a bank account, not easy when the nearest branch may be several kilometers away.
Finally, the ARiMR has to have a computerized register of all farms and farm animals up and running by accession, or else billions of Euros in subsidies will be lost. Representatives remain adamant that the farmers will get their money.
The most positive aspect of this story was the general change in attitude that the author highlighted since accession became a certainty. Farmers in particular and rural Poland in general were extremely skeptical regarding the whole European project. Now the ARiMR is conducting over 200 of these training courses across the country; supportive bishops are instructing their priests to read letters encouraging people to find out about the subsidies; and, on a local level, the priests themselves are attending the courses and helping farmers to fill out the application forms.
Of course, how well all this will actually work remains to be seen, but if Polish farmers do start getting hard cash in their pockets next year, thanks only to Poland joining the EU, attitudes may soften further. However, this is still not certain, so the last word goes to a farmer called Stanisław, who has already filled out his application forms, "It's a necessary evil, but it's going to destroy our economy."
Chris Wells makes an insipid investigation of what the world's English-language press is saying about Poland
Merging Polish farmers into the system in place in the rest of the EU does, however, raise certain unique problems. First, the application system has been simplified for Poland which, paradoxically, makes things more complicated. As they will be paid by the amount of land under cultivation (not the direct payment system in the rest of the EU), each farmer will have to show clear legal title to their land. Small farms are often made up of slivers of land passed down through the generations; one farmer in Rzeczyca pointed out that his four hectares has over a dozen disconnected pieces, all of which he must prove he legally owns. Secondly, to get the money all farmers will have to open a bank account, not easy when the nearest branch may be several kilometers away.
Finally, the ARiMR has to have a computerized register of all farms and farm animals up and running by accession, or else billions of Euros in subsidies will be lost. Representatives remain adamant that the farmers will get their money.
The most positive aspect of this story was the general change in attitude that the author highlighted since accession became a certainty. Farmers in particular and rural Poland in general were extremely skeptical regarding the whole European project. Now the ARiMR is conducting over 200 of these training courses across the country; supportive bishops are instructing their priests to read letters encouraging people to find out about the subsidies; and, on a local level, the priests themselves are attending the courses and helping farmers to fill out the application forms.
Of course, how well all this will actually work remains to be seen, but if Polish farmers do start getting hard cash in their pockets next year, thanks only to Poland joining the EU, attitudes may soften further. However, this is still not certain, so the last word goes to a farmer called Stanisław, who has already filled out his application forms, "It's a necessary evil, but it's going to destroy our economy."
Chris Wells makes an insipid investigation of what the world's English-language press is saying about Poland
