Winning taste of Polish country life

Holding back the tide of agricultural change sweeping through rural communities is no small task. But winning an international tourism award has given a significant boost to the campaign to protect the countryside in Poland.

credit: ICPCC

Despite the rise and fall of communism, most of Poland still rests in the hands of family farmers, more than two million of them. Many farm the land using traditional and organic techniques and their fields are home to a rich diversity of wildlife. However, government policy is encouraging the 'modernization' of the rural economy. Poised to join the European Union and perfectly positioned to produce and export a huge range of crops to neighbouring markets, planners want existing small, low-input enterprises to make way for larger and more intensively managed farm businesses.

"Farmers are hearing all the time that they're not professional enough, that they are too small, they don't use enough chemicals," says Jadwiga Lopata, the farmer and ecologist who has become the farmers' spokesperson. "Farmers are really angry. They say who can tell me I'm not able to make a living from my 5 hectares of land when my grandparents, my parents, me and my children have all made a living on it?"

To remain viable farm businesses is the key. Should farm incomes sink and the next generation seek different livelihoods then, as in depressed rural communities worldwide, the pattern of family ownership and agricultural practices would soon change. Inviting paying guests onto farms - agri-tourism - has proved a lifeline. ECEAT-Poland, (the European Centre for Ecological Agriculture and Tourism in Poland) started with a handful of host farms offering accommodation and activities. Now there are well over a hundred, from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathian mountains.

Popular with visitors, the Association has just gained even more widespread international recognition. Winning a British Airways "Tourism for Tomorrow Award for 2001" (in October) has helped to attract more publicity within Europe and the United States. But agri-tourism Polish-style is more than just a relaxing break in the countryside. "It's not that we want farmers to rely on tourists - absolutely not," stresses Jadwiga Lopata, "We want the farming to go on." No farm can join the scheme unless it is a working farm. They will not be offered guests unless 50% of what guests are to eat is to be produced on farm.

The underlying political motive for the association is that by offering a taste of Polish country life, in every sense, the farmers will win support for their campaign to continue their way of life and styles of production. Polish family farms are not averse to change; they want to be better organized and they want to be able to market their produce, with organic certification to urban Poles in the cities. To do so, they accept that they will need training in setting up and running co-operatives.

Family farms in Poland are not alone in the pressures they face. Their plight, and their passion to survive, has not gone unnoticed. A year ago, with visiting delegations from 18 other countries, the International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside (ICPCC) met for the first time. In November 2001, in Cracow, they will meet again. "We began by thinking only about ourselves," confesses ICPCC Director Jadwiga Lopata, " but we have been joined by others from places like India, Turkey and Ecuador, who face the same problem and have the same enthusiasm to protect the countryside and the livelihoods of those who wish to carry on living and working in it."

While momentum from international awards and coalitions will help, farmers are well aware that they have to exert influence in government as well. In September 2001, they took to the streets in Warsaw to make their views known to politicians. The protest, which coincided with the elections, had support from 220 Polish and international organisations. Subsequently, ICPCC launched a "Countryside Manifesto for 21st Century Poland", setting out the policies they believe will secure the future of food production on small family farms.

Polish family farmers' pride in the way they farm and their determination to carry on producing food is not in doubt. Nor is what they want to achieve. But, when in Europe and many other parts of the world small-scale family farming has gone into rapid decline, winning themselves a secure future would be the most remarkable achievement of all.

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