Polish farmer protest blocks roads nationwide

Polish farmers said on Wednesday (March 20) they should have been in the fields rather than blocking roads with tractors as the protests escalated against EU environmental regulations and cheap food imports from neighbouring Ukraine, Reuters reports.

 

"Many of us wonder if it makes sense to cultivate these fields at all, because we generate additional costs," farmer Konrad blocking road in Kazun Nowy told Reuters.

 

Farmers in Poland and elsewhere in the EU have been protesting in recent months to demand the re-imposition of customs duties on agricultural imports from Ukraine that were waived after Russia's invasion in 2022.

 

They say Ukraine's farmers are flooding Europe with cheap imports that leave them unable to compete.

 

On Wednesday, the EU reached a provisional agreement to extend Ukrainian food producers' tariff-free access to its markets until June 2025 - albeit with new limits on grain imports.

 

Polish protest leaders said they were not happy with the latest deal as it included the last few years as a reference for import limits. They want quotas based on figures from well before the war in Ukraine began, when imports were much lower.