Polish Economic Development Minister Waldemar Buda has asked the European Commission to include raspberries in the list of Ukrainian agricultural products whose imports to Poland are prohibited, Polish Agriculture Minister Robert Telus said.
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"The season is beginning. We have a lot of frozen raspberries in storage, in refrigerators, and in freezers, and there are also raspberries that have arrived from Ukraine. Minister Buda appealed to the European Commission a few days ago to include raspberries in the list of products [whose imports from Ukraine are banned]," Ukrainian media quoted Telus as saying in an interview with PAP Studio.
Asked about the situation on the market of raspberries and other berries, Telus described it as "complicated." The farm-gate price for one kilo of raspberries has declined from 20 zloty ($4.92) last year to 4 zloty ($0.98) now, and the government plans to take measures to intervene, he said.
The minister said he met with protesting farmers from the Opole and Lublin provinces, who were outraged by the low farm-gate prices for their raspberries that went down to 4.5-5 Polish zloty per kilo while their production cost is 7.44 zloty.
Farmers demanded that Ukrainian raspberries be subjected to mandatory inspections for pesticides and that their uncontrollable imports be suspended, farmer.pl reported.
Telus said also that he had some doubts about the European Commission's support.
"I can see already now from the European Commission's behavior that this would be very difficult. I've checked out whether the large amount of incoming raspberries is a problem only for Poland or for all countries bordering [Ukraine]. At the present moment, if we talk about an inflow from Ukraine, it's only Poland's problem. So we have to appeal this ourselves, which we will," Telus said.
He, however, ruled out the possibility of subsidizing the production of raspberries and other berries in response to the situation. "If we announced today that there would be some subsidies, of course, the companies wouldn't raise the price [...] This is not a solution," he said.
Telus said a company operating within the Agricultural Ministry's purview is likely to start procuring raspberries at a price higher than the market "within the next few hours" to help producers.
According to Deputy Agriculture Minister Janusz Kowalski's information, 42,000 farmers are engaged in producing raspberries in Poland, growing them on an area of 21,000 hectares.
They produced 105,000 tonnes of raspberries in 2022, and they have some worries about the future, considering that imports of frozen raspberries from Ukraine grew by one-third to 22,000 tonnes last year.
Moreover, imports of Ukrainian raspberries to Poland increased by another 117% to over 7,000 tonnes from January to April 2023 compared to the same period last year. ■
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