In the grain market, the drama, prices fly down, and the agricultural ministry is inactive idle. Many companies face major financial problems, if not bankruptcy. Interview with the Service portal21 was given by Dr Daniel Alain Korona – erstwhile president of Elewarru (2007, 2018-2022) and advisor to the trade union of agriculture “Korona”. Unfortunately, he's not optimistic. It states that the time of declaration has passed, the time for action. Here are his fragments:
Daniel Alain Korona: Yes, due to the fact that farmers have a sense of inaction of government, ignoring their needs and demands. For months there has been a request from the European Commission to apply Article 4 of Regulation 870/2022, the alleged safeguard clauses on cereals. It is not even a substance of imposing duties, but of guaranteeing that Poland will be able to opt out after 4 June 2023 for the restoration of certain goods, if necessary, without the European Union's consent. Unfortunately, we see ministerial pushes and the deficiency of this proposal. any people told me that they feel that the Polish government is more afraid about agroholdings operating in Ukraine than about a Polish farmer. This is most likely a incorrect view, but many ministerial slogans in the kind of a food oil pipeline from Ukraine to Gdańsk, the announcement of participation in the initiative of the Grains from Ukraine, statements about obligations towards Ukraine and many others contribute in my opinion to anti-Ukrainian respondents. It's a substance of not even actions, but public narrative... In addition, we have besides made another demands specified as increased strategical reserves, export subsidies, etc. – you can work on them, as if any demands are accepted, but you can't see the implementation. We are inactive calling for a factual, substantive discussion and work on agriculture, due to the fact that drama continues, declaration time is up, time for real action.
The war in Ukraine has led to a wavering price of cereals, but not only, first to very advanced increases, then as part of the reverse trend to declines. As a result, there was a situation where prices during the harvest period were much higher than in the post-harvest period, on an unprecedented scale. In addition, we had very good cereal harvests in Poland (approximately 35 million tonnes), large stocks of last year (as revealed by the Ministry of Agriculture 7 million tonnes) and Ukrainian imports (since 1 July about 2 million tonnes), under conditions of decreasing home request (25-27 million tonnes) and insufficient exports, among others, due to Russian dumping. So they're threatening us with quite a few supplies at the end of the season, which means with good harvests, we might have a bad situation.
The Ministry of Agriculture has now announced aid for farmers to sale cereals.
But is the Ministry of Agriculture liable for this drama?
There has been a accumulation of bad factors, i.e. oversupply of cereals, Ukrainian imports, drifting expectations of farmers and buying points. In addition, there have been errors made by the Ministry of Agriculture, i.e. the Minister's call to halt selling cereals, due to the fact that prices will increase (and as we know they have not increased), loosen the control of imports from Ukraine, etc. Moreover, although the problem of Ukrainian grain caused expanding problems, as Commissioner Wojciechowski said, there was no Polish notification. It was not until December that he was contacted, and this occurred after agricultural protests, etc. Undoubtedly, the problem of oversupply of cereals has been disregarded.
So what is the solution?
Everything depends on the possibilities we have or give each other. The Ministry of Agriculture is blocking the European Union, and there are limitations. But sometimes you gotta consider circumventing these restrictions. Together with the CORON Council, we have advocated, for example, an increase in strategical reserves, export subsidies, the application of Article 4 of Regulation (EU) No 870/2022, an increase in border control. We want to talk about these demands in substance and work on how to implement them, and we may find another proposals as part of a brainstorm. If there is no money, cannot debt instruments, or actually money in time, be utilized instead? Unfortunately, so far there is inactive no work in the substantive team, they are only in consequence to our authoritative conclusions of elaborates, from which small results.
Thus, as erstwhile president Elewarru states, the time for the declaration has passed, the time for action.
Full text of the interview: https://servis21.blogspot.com/2023/03/korona-dramat-market-zboz-permanent-time.html
