Polish Agriculture Minister Backs Reforming, Not Scrapping, Food Promotion Funds
Poland's agriculture minister Stefan Krajewski says he wants to make the food promotion funds more effective rather than abolish the system. The ministry has begun work on changes and plans consultations with industry representatives.
Stefan Krajewski, Poland's Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said at a media briefing at the ministry in Warsaw on 29 October that the effectiveness of the agri-food promotion funds should be improved without dismantling the whole system. The funds are intended to promote Polish food products, and their future is currently under debate.
Consultations planned
The ministry has started work on changes to how the funds operate. The next step is talks with representatives of individual sectors, who share responsibility with the authorities for deciding how the accumulated money is spent. No detailed list of proposed solutions has been presented yet. What is known is that the changes are meant to improve the use of funds and make the promotion of Polish agri-food products more effective.
Krajewski stressed that any irregularities in spending should be explained and settled, but should not automatically lead to the abolition of the entire system. He said the country "cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater." The minister also said that the domestic and foreign events he attended were paid for from the ministry's budget, not from the promotion funds. He sharply criticised the circulation of information that, in his view, misleads the public.
View from the industry
Jacek Zarzecki, deputy chairman of the Polish Sustainable Beef Platform, favours modernising the funds rather than closing them. In his view the system should be monitored but continue to support the promotion of Polish products. He cited Germany, where, he said, industry and farming organisations created a private promotion financing mechanism after moving away from the previous system, and it has a much smaller budget.
Who decides on spending
Decisions on the use of the money are made by management committees that include producers, processors and representatives of agricultural chambers. Responsibility for the system therefore rests not only with the administration but also with the industry itself.
The beef market illustrates the funds' importance: Poland is among the European Union's major beef producers and exporters, and Polish beef reaches more than 70 countries. Zarzecki noted that promotion alone does not guarantee higher purchase prices; quality standards and commercial arrangements are also needed so that a product's value translates into producers' earnings.
