The Polish Federation of Cattle Breeders and Milk Producers entered the year preceding its thirtieth anniversary. Someone may say: it is still a young organization, it still has a lot to learn. Words of substantive criticism must be accepted with humility. It’s worse when there’s nothing substantive behind the criticism other than expressing your own frustrations or, worse still, hiding your own mistakes.
Recently, many people have thrown the proverbial bucket of garbage on the Federation. And it was Deputy Minister Rafał Romanowski who threatened on Facebook with the introduction of receivership, later sent a ministerial inspection, which did not reveal any financial irregularities, and even later wanted to take away the subsidy from breeders. Then the pseudo-activists
from the removed regional unions. I consciously write pseudo-activists because, firstly, during their tenure in the Federation, they did not submit any substantive comments and did not help in solving any breeding problems, and secondly, they encouraged a form of protest that actually deprived breeders of the results of their hard work and wasted the invested funds. . It is an open secret that just a year ago some gentlemen were preparing to take power in the Federation, and this completely absorbed their minds. We do not write about editors from German newspapers, sticking to the principle “we don’t talk to bunglers” articulated a few years ago. Although no. To show that they are not out of practice and are still attacking the Federation, we will note that they recently published an interview,
which shows that the Federation manages money from the state budget and this happens without any supervision. They added the traditional text that a change to the statute is needed. Gentlemen, let me ask you: what is the purpose of the KCHZ inspection, sent ad hoc by Minister Romanowski? She drank coffee here for four months? Have you forgotten that the proposals for changes to the statute, which included introducing a term limit for the president, did not pass the last General Congress of Federation Delegates with the votes of members of the Podlasie Association of Cattle Breeders and Milk Producers? Ladies and Gentlemen, if someone has the so-called if you want to focus on glass and want to quickly become known, you need to: criticize the Federation, raise a slogan about transparency and changing the statute and, of course, depriving Leszek Hądzlik of the function of president.
To our surprise, Mr. Adam Gałgański recently joined the group of people criticizing the Federation. He believed that we were being misguided and encouraged breeders to create a new federation, with which SHiUZ Bydgoszcz, headed by him, is ready to cooperate.
Let’s consider why there are so many adversaries of the Federation. Why are they attacking us? Because we are weak? Because we are divided? Because we have nothing to say in breeding? Let’s say it straight – they are attacking because the Federation is an entity that has been building its substantive position, human resources and material base for almost thirty years and is constantly striving to strengthen its position as a representative of the cattle breeders’ community.
and milk producers, and not only in Poland. Let’s say it straight – they attack because we are a substantively strong and financially stable organization.
Direct privatization failed
If anyone doesn’t believe it, let me share the numbers. True, taken from financial reports in officially available publications. Let’s start not with ourselves, but with SHiUZ Bydgoszcz. Since Vice-President Gałagański declares that we are badly led, let’s first see how the best do it. The company he co-manages has not generated a profit on sales since 2015. This means that the value of the genetic material sold or other services provided by the Company was lower than the costs incurred by it. You may ask: by how much? In the period from 2015 to 2022, almost PLN 38 million loss. In such a situation, a good manager must take restructuring actions so that the company starts earning money from its activities. When a farmer sees that the costs of milk production are higher than the funds obtained for it, he either reduces his costs or tries to increase efficiency. The management board of SHiUZ Bydgoszcz has a third option – it sells its assets, or actually not its own assets, but the shareholders’ ones. These are developed and undeveloped properties in Porosły, Białka, Pętkowice, Szczecinek, Kraśnik, Bielsk Podlaski, Piątnica and Markowskie. According to Mariusz Wyrzykowski, member of the management board of SHiUZ Bydgoszcz, these were unnecessary properties generating unjustified maintenance costs. The value of the sold assets over a 10-year period is at least PLN 35 million. Converting this into the euro exchange rate applicable in the years of sale, we will obtain an amount of approximately PLN 12,800,000. euro. So, if we convert the sale of assets into Polish zlotys at today’s euro rates, we will see that the elite managers sold the company’s assets worth PLN 55 million. If real estate is unnecessary and generates unjustified costs, and the sale was profitable – according to the interested parties we asked – why did the book value of SHiUZ Bydgoszcz shares at the end of 2022 fluctuate around EUR 15 per share compared to EUR 26 in 2013. Someone will say: maybe the sale of redundant assets was necessary for new investments or it returned to the owners through a dividend. Nothing could be further from the truth. The value of fixed assets under construction at the end of 2022 did not exceed PLN 500,000. PLN, and let’s not mention the dividend. Over the last five years, it was paid once for 2020. This year, the Company sold assets for over PLN 18 million. Obtaining a profit of PLN 12 million, she allocated PLN 1 million, 86 thousand. PLN 210 for dividends to owners. It was PLN 3 gross per share. The best summary is the rating the company received according to the website run by Infoveriti. This portal analyzes financial data of companies registered in the National Court Register and advises whether a potential contractor is a financially stable entity. Well, according to the SHiUZ portal, Bydgoszcz was rated one with a high risk level. The above figures indicate that the Polish Federation acted wisely not to engage in a project in which it would lose financial resources. The breeding “successes” are proven by the fact that the number of bulls from the Bydgoszcz company entered into the breeding books of the PHF breed in the top 10 PL was exactly one. For example, in 2014 this company had 8 of them.
You have to know how to breed
In the catalog of SHiUZ bulls in Bydgoszcz, published after the 2023.2 assessment, in the ranking of genomically valued Holstein-Friesian bulls of the HO and RW varieties, there are 54% of imported bulls, and only 46% come from Polish breeding farms. Interestingly, in the offer of SHiUZ in Bydgoszcz, only 34 bulls are entered in Polish books, and 38 are imported bull semen, mainly from France, but also Germany, Canada and the USA. The conclusion is that SHiUZ in Bydgoszcz has become a semen importer, and investing in Polish bull evaluation and selection programs is not its priority.
The recently invented slogan of “repolonization” of SHiUZ Bydgoszcz, analyzing the economic elements and breeding “successes”, is nothing more than a marketing trick, the same as calling for the creation of a “new federation”. The new Minister of Agriculture will have a hard time dealing with the effects of objectively poor management of SHiUZ Bydgoszcz.
Federation Scoring
How does the Polish Federation compare to SHiUZ Bydgoszcz in the same parameters? Let’s start with Infoveriti scoring. Rating five and description extremely low risk. The value of the assets has increased from PLN 46 to PLN 77 million over the last 10 years, and the total value of the Federation’s assets is almost PLN 150 million. In the same period, the Federation’s share capital increased by 50% and has an accounting amount of almost PLN 100 million. This means that if the Federation were closed today and its liabilities were paid, the assets that would remain would be valued from the books at PLN 100 million. The Federation coped with the situation in which Minister Krzysztof Ardanowski unexpectedly reduced the subsidy after seven months of 2019, taking away almost PLN 29 million from the Federation already budgeted. Despite this unexpected decision, its financial consequences were not fully passed on to the breeders. Now every reader can see why we are a tasty morsel for some politicians, pseudo-breeders or weak managers. If we add constant substantive activity, investments in genomics, the creation of a computing center, the FedInfo system, or other IT tools, you will see a powerful entity that is admired not only by Europe, but also by representatives of countries from all over the world. The Polish Federation undergoes periodic audits of its services and can boast of ICAR, PCA and ISAG certificates. There is one more important element that distinguishes the Federation from other large European players. In Germany and France, breed associations are divided and do not have uniform representation. Often their interests do not coincide, which makes it difficult to find common ground. The Scandinavian countries noticed this problem and united their forces. This unity is an additional, if not decisive, advantage that makes the Federation participate in the construction of a European computing center for bulls. This success is mainly due to a group of almost a thousand employees of the Federation. Maintaining this group of zootechnicians, inspectors, advisors and investing in their work tools is what hurts our opponents. Let us remind you that in the past employees drove private cars, today they come to breeders in company cars. Others around the world envy us this success, but some people in our country do not want to recognize it. There were no collective layoffs in the Federation, and staff exchange takes place in a natural way. Older workers retire earlier, preparing and introducing their successors. The Federation has been led by the same team of people for 20 years. For comparison, I checked that the president of the Hungarian oil giant Mol, 63-year-old Zsolt Hernadi, has been managing this company for 23 years, while his 75-year-old colleague from the Spanish Repsol has 20 years of experience in managing the company. So it’s nothing extraordinary. Opponents of the Federation demand changes not because they have something to propose, but because their personal achievements in various fields are questionable. You have to be really strong to learn to benefit from the successes of others.