The Polish government has authorised the agriculture and development ministers to implement a temporary ban on Ukrainian food amid protests by Polish farmers who are angry about depressed prices and problems in selling their grain and other produce.

Farmers have held protests across the country, complaining against the inability to sell their grain as storage space has already been taken by cheaper Ukrainian grain. The imports, which were originally planned to be sent further to the Middle East and Africa, ended up in Poland depressing local prices. Similar problems have affected other agricultural products as well, including poultry and eggs.

„The Council of Ministers has discussed the current situation on the agricultural market and the negative outcomes of the Russian aggression against Ukraine,” the Ministry of Agriculture wrote in a statement on Saturday.

„The Council of Ministers has authorised the minister of agriculture and rural development and the minister of development and technology to issue relevant legal acts for the protection of the Polish agricultural market against destabilisation, including a temporary prohibition of imports of agricultural and food products from Ukraine,” the statement read.

The ministry added that „appropriate ministers have been in constant contact with the Ukrainian authorities in order to seek a solution to the difficult situation connected with the destabilisation of the agricultural market.”

According to a regulation issued by the development minister, Waldemar Buda, on Saturday, the ban will take immediate effect and will be in force until the end of June.

The regulation stipulates grain, sugar, milk and milk products and dairy as the banned products.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the conservative ruling party Law and Justice (PiS), announced the ban at a PiS agricultural congress earlier on Saturday, but vowed that Poland will remain „a friend and ally of Ukraine, with no change here.”

„We will support it and we are supporting it,” he said.

According to the party leader, the decision results from „asymmetry between Polish and Ukrainian farming that is caused by the (difference in the) quality of soil, much lower costs of labour in Ukraine and ultimately the fact that over there farms are huge and operated by international companies with vast infrastructure.”

„Given the asymmetry between the Polish and Ukrainian farming… if everything came here without limits… this could spur a grave crisis of Polish farming,” he said.

„We won’t allow this,” he added.

The party leader also said that Poland was ready to sign a relevant grain imports deal with Ukraine.

„We have notified our Ukrainian friends about the decisions and we’re ready… to start talks at any moment to deal with the issue as part of a bilateral agreement,” Kaczynski said. (PAP)

mk