Agricultural protests are taking place across the Czech Republic today. Tractors have entered many cities, farmers are blocking roads and border crossings with Poland and Germany.
Czech farmers are fed up with the government’s helplessness in matters relating to agricultural policy and demand state support to maintain the profitability of agricultural production. They demand tax relief, lower insurance premiums, launch of new export directions, and subsidies for unprofitable production.
They also protest against EU bureaucracy and the Green Deal strategy, but the direct spark for today’s speeches were the results of yesterday’s vote in the European Parliament. This is about extending the free trade agreement between the EU and Ukraine. Czech farmers complain that the market is already flooded with Ukrainian grain, and prices have fallen by half within a year.
Tractors on the road
Cavalcades of tractors entered many large cities in the Czech Republic today. Farmers protest on the streets of Olomouc, Hradec Kralove, Pilsen, Mikulov, Opava. The busiest national road No. 35 from Jičín to Hradec Králové, as well as many other transit routes in the Czech Republic, were blocked. Tractor blockades were also erected at the border crossings with Poland and Germany – we read on the Novinky.cz website.
– Farmers are furious because commodity prices are being undercut by imports from third countries, and now Europe has approved duty-free imports from third countries for another year. Local producers are subject to many regulations and must comply with a number of restrictions that do not apply to imports, says Petra Novotná, director of the Central Bohemian Chamber of Agriculture, in a conversation with journalists.
Import instead of export
– The contemptuous statements of the Prime Minister and some ministers prove that they still do not understand the seriousness of the situation and we must fight for our rights again. I also do not understand the need for politicians to constantly divide us into large and small farmers. We all have problems and we need solutions to them, Václav Koutný, president of the Olomouc Land Private Agriculture Association, tells Novinkom.
Ukrainians have much lower production costs, which eliminates our production from the market. Purchase prices dropped by about fifty percent, and agriculture lost PLN 19 billion, adds Jiří Milek, chairman of the Initiative for Agri-Food Enterprises.
-The republic produces about 8 million tons of grain, of which only five million are consumed. Instead of helping us sell excess production on world markets, the government imports grain from Ukraine, complains František Sekanina, a farmer from Žeruvka, on the Czech portal.
– .
