Re: The Political Economy of Famine

Gunder Frank wrote:

> It has long been establishd that North and South ag producers and
> consumer DO comp[ete in the SAME world market,


The South can even be in the far North, as the fate of Poland's farmers
shows (this from today's Guardian)


Mark Jones
http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList


Polish farmers declare war over EU membership

Thousands of smallholders claim they are being pushed to the wall in the
Warsaw government's rush to negotiate with Brussels on entry
The European Commission: special report

Tony Paterson in Augustow, north-east Poland
Tuesday April 18, 2000

Poland's politicians may be embracing early membership of the European Union
but its farmers are furious about the move, which could wipe out their
livelihoods.
This week, as the European commission finalises its draft plan for the
inclusion of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia and
Cyprus in the union, many of the fields around Augustow remain a wasteland.

"Polish agriculture is already ruined," said one farmer, Stanislaw
Bojkowski, 67, who tills 50 acres near Augustow.

"Farming was worthwhile under communism, but Warsaw's European Union madness
is driving us out of business."

He is not alone. According to estimates from the Polish Peasants' party,
only 600,000 of the country's 2m farms will survive the process of joining
the EU.

Yet Warsaw's liberal-conservative coalition government is adamant that
Poland must join as soon as possible.

Mr Bojkowski is cultivating only half of his land this year - he cannot
afford the fertilisers needed for the rest.

"The money I get for the wheat and potatoes I manage to produce hardly makes
it worthwhile. The bulk of my income these days derives from my old-age
pension," he said.

Two miles away, Mieczyslaw Suchocki, 43, has tried to offset his farming
losses by taking a share in a grocery store.

In the 1980s his 74-acre farm, producing potatoes, wheat and tobacco, was
subsidised by the state. A single tobacco crop earned Mr Suchocki enough to
buy a car.

Now the terms of growing are set by the multinational British American
Tobacco company. "Starting next year, BAT is only buying tobacco from
farmers who plant and dry it with the special drying equipment we can buy
from them.

"I would need a $10,000 loan to purchase the equipment and I simply can't
afford it. Producing tobacco on a small scale is out," he said.

The collapse of small-scale farming is a dilemma faced by all the EU
candidate countries but it is acute in Poland, where some 26% of the working
population is in agriculture.

Roman Jagielinski of the Polish Peasants' party argues that the state must
make social security provision for farmers forced out of business. He wants
the rest to receive subsidies from Brussels.

But Brussels has so far turned a deaf ear. The common agricultural policy
subsidy budget, which amounts to more than £25bn a year in direct aid to EU
farmers, has been fixed until 2006.

It contains no provision for EU candidate countries, although Poland is
still aiming for a 2003 entry date.

The anger of Polish farmers boiled over last year, when the militant
agricultural workers' union Samoobrona (Self- Defence) staged countrywide
protests against the flood of cheap EU imports.

This persuaded Warsaw to temporarily ban grain imports and raise the amounts
paid for home-grown pork.

But the moves were not enough to satisfy Samoobrona's leader, Andrej Lepper,
who will run as a candidate in the presidential election this autumn.

"Poland is not being treated as a partner by the EU. We are simply being
used as a dumping ground for their surplus products," he said.

Two-thirds of large farm owners recently declared their readiness to take
part in further militant protests.

The Guardian 18.04.00