Karol Pieczynski, representative of Polish farmers who organised the partial blockade, said Monday the campaign should still continue for the whole week, as planned before.
“At the moment, very little Ukrainian grain is on the road, but checks have shown that there are a lot of processed products such as flour crossing. We do not know the origin of these products, and before the inspections there used to be a lot of flour of Russian origin being transported. This is clear from the transport documents and the information provided by the drivers themselves,” Pieczynski told the LRT public radio on Monday morning.
Pieczynski also said he has no complaints against Lithuanian hauliers or farmers, as Polish dealers are likely to be involved in transporting grain. He also said that checks show grain is arriving in Poland from Russia and Belarus.
“As protesting farmers, we have no claims against Lithuanian carriers or farmers. We do not rule out the possibility that many of the transportations were made with the help of Polish companies. We do not want to undermine Lithuanian hauliers in any way, we just want to highlight the problem that the excess grain is being transported and we do not know its origin,” he explained.
“These checks show that the grain destined for Poland comes from Russia and Belarus,” he said.
Unannounced random checks at the border could continue after the campaign, at least once a week, according to Pieczynski. He said farmers will make an effort to achieve that in talks with the Polish government.
Lorry drivers interviewed by LRT radio at the border said the protest does not interfere with the traffic at the moment, but bigger queues are expected on Tuesday.
The president of Lithuania’s Chamber of Agriculture, Arūnas Svitojus, said that although the protest was causing worries at first, it turned out to be peaceful. He observed that the campaign revealed that a lot of foreign grain was also entering Lithuania, undercutting prices.
“The Polish farmers helped us to see for ourselves what is happening between the borders and in Lithuania itself,” said Svitojus.
“We saw that a lot of foreign grain is coming into Lithuania as well, driving down prices for Lithuanian farmers and causing some chaos on the markets. This is not happening in Poland and Bulgaria only, it also affects Lithuanian farmers,” he explained, adding that the blockade can contribute to stopping grain imports from unfriendly countries.
“Lithuanian farmers back the protest, which is calm and causes no tensions between our countries. It addresses common problems for farmers in Lithuania, Poland, Latvia and other countries,” Svitojus said.
Polish farmers, discontent over the European Green Deal and cheap Ukrainian grain imports, on 1 March started a partial blockade of a motorway between Budzisko village in Poland and Kalvarija town in Lithuania in an aim to check how much Ukrainian grain lorries import from Lithuania to Poland.