In the coming years, farmers will face further deepening of biophysical problems and increasingly limited funds in the envelope for agriculture in the future EU budget. These are signals: today we need a public debate on the plan for the agriculture and food sector in Poland, which has been plagued by crises for years.
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This conversation is all the more timely because, apart from the current turbulence, we will also face many challenges in the coming years. Today's difficulties for farmers are not a series of unfortunate events, but a consequence of structural neglect. This is clear proof that the solutions proposed so far have not stood the test of time. Today, Poland must precisely diagnose the sources of problems and dependencies in the food system, and then develop a constructive scenario for the future development of the sector.
A system that we do not want to call a system
Agriculture and food operate within the broader food system. Yet agricultural policies have consistently denied it this status for decades. EU and national interventions were based mainly on direct payments, and their primary goal was to increase productivity. In achieving this goal, this support was effective, but at the same time it marginalized other functions of agriculture: providing public goods, protecting natural resources and landscape, and the role of rural areas as stable socio-economic centers.
At the same time, demand shaping policies have been largely left to the marketi. Large retail chains dictate conditions to both farmers and consumers. Shortening supply chains, the availability of local products at affordable prices and the diversity of varieties are losing out to highly processed food with low nutritional value. Even where the state has direct influence – in schools, hospitals and public institutions – the price criterion dominates over quality, locality and compliance with dietary recommendations.
Adapting to the realities of the system, farmers intensified production. The focus was on monocultures and the development of industrial farms, because the market offers such products and such production is supported by subsidies. As a result, a system that could shape healthy, sustainable practices and habits perpetuates the least desirable ones. Consumers were left to their own devices. Ironically, farmers themselves were also put in this position.
Low price or high cost?
However, the “productive” model turns out to be extremely expensive. The central assumption of its functioning is the externalization of costs. It is based on the exploitation of key resources for agricultural production, such as soil and water, leading to their degradation and pollution. At the same time, it leaves no time or space for their reconstruction. The tools that maintain this system – excessive use of artificial fertilizers or excessive animal numbers – have also become a significant source of “excess” greenhouse gas emissions. They thus contribute to climate change, which is particularly dangerous for agriculture.
One of the functions of agriculture is to protect natural resources and the landscape
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Krzysztof Leniec / Shutterstock
Both farmers and society as a whole pay a huge price for this. The last one estimates The Institute of Environmental Protection indicates that as a result of extreme phenomena, especially droughts, on average Poland loses up to PLN 6 billion per year, and agriculture bears more than half of these losses. As we point out in the latest report of the Institute of Sustainable Economy “Dividing the ear into four”, in some years agricultural losses caused by climate change reached up to PLN 11 billion.
However, the social costs do not end there. The scale of diet-related diseases has been skyrocketing in recent years, the percentage of people (including children) who are overweight and obese is increasing, and highly processed food has a negative impact on the mental health of citizens. All this leads to huge costs – not only economic, including those related to health care and society's productivity, but also those measured by quality of life.
The paradox is that mechanisms for compensating losses often not only fail to counteract these phenomena, but actually perpetuate them. Aid programs are designed to strengthen monocultures, national strategies still assume a further increase in the already high animal production, and a significant part of the funds goes to the largest and most prosperous farms. An increasing part of the food produced in Poland is used for feed and not directly for consumption. Therefore, in this context, it is difficult to talk about real strengthening of food security.
Farmers' protests: a warning signal
Since the end of 2023, farmers' protests have been regularly taking place on the streets of Polish and European cities. Opposition to the Green Deal, simplifications within the CAP and the controversy related to the Mercosur agreement have become symbols of growing dissatisfaction. It is easy to see that they are not based on single packages of environmental regulations or international trade. Farmers see these problems and willingly use pro-environmental programs, such as eco-schemes, but frustration is growing.
Adrianna Wrona, manager of the Agriculture and Food Systems program at the Institute of Sustainable Economy
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IZG / IZG
So where does it come from? Its source is primarily deep economic uncertainty. These are low and unstable prices, deteriorating production conditions, more and more frequent and more severe losses and the lack of support instruments enabling long-term planning, investment and development. There is no strategy in which farmers feel that someone sees the whole picture and takes responsibility for it. Protests are therefore a symptom of systemic power, not its cause.
Meanwhile, skepticism about the effectiveness of the current Common Agricultural Policy is growing on the European agenda. Politics, which has consumed about 30 percent over the years. the EU budget and was supposed to be one of the central instruments for implementing the EU's strategic goals in agriculture, did not deliver the expected environmental and social results.
New EU budget, new CAP: time for a vision for agriculture
Questions about the validity of maintaining the current level of support for agriculture are multiplying along with the above doubts and the growing pressure on the EU budget. The materialization of such a scenario would be extremely harmful to the sector. Agriculture today needs more, not less, support. There still seems to be room for appropriate shifts. The point is that in the current reality, additional measures require solid justification: meticulous and comprehensive planning of truly effective policies and mechanisms for assessing their impact.
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Maintaining the current model of the sector's operation and support is no longer an option, and we have real evidence of this. We need an alternative support model. One that will treat the food system in an adequate way, that is… systemically.
It must promote new, attractive business models for farmers, but also be based on the principle of fairness. On the one hand, it should support farmers in effective adaptation, and on the other hand, motivate them to take mitigation actions. It must also fairly reward farmers not only for food production, but also for the protection of nature, landscape and other public services.
Diversification should be a central part of this model because it is the foundation of resilience: productive, economic, adaptive and transformational. Equally important, this plan cannot end at the production stage. Providing sales markets for diverse, valuable products and actively shaping demand for healthy, local food are essential elements of this puzzle.
Such a plan – comprehensive, coherent, long-term and fair – is the only real way to regain stability in agriculture today. Its development should become one of the most important goals of the Polish government as part of the negotiations of the future EU budget and the design of all national policies for agriculture.
Author of the article: Adrianna Wrona, manager of the Agriculture and Food Systems program at the Institute of Sustainable Economy.
