The Supreme Audit Office of Poland (NIK) has completed an investigation into uncontrolled grain imports from Ukraine for the period from early January 2022 to the end of August 2023 and called the cause of the grain crisis "ineffective actions and decisions of the Polish government."
Source. This was reported by the Polish edition of Rzeczpospolita, Interfax-Ukraine reports.
"The implementation of tasks related to the import and trade of grain and rapeseed from Ukraine was not reliable and effective," the publication cites the final report of the NIK.
It is noted that imports of wheat increased from 3,100 tons in 2021 to 523,000 tons in 2022, corn from 6,200 tons to 1.85 million tons, and rapeseed from 86,000 tons to 662,000 tons.
During the audit period, 541 companies imported 4.3 million tons of grains and oilseeds to Poland, worth PLN 6.2 billion. The largest amount of grain and rapeseed was imported by a company from the Mazowieckie Voivodeship, which transships and sells agricultural products. The value of these imports exceeded PLN 0.5 billion.
Among the other companies in the top ten importers (totaling PLN 2 billion), five are also based in Mazovia, and the rest are engaged in grain trade, oil production, poultry and pig farming in the Lubelskie, Pomeranian, Kuyavian-Pomeranian and Lesser Poland voivodeships.
"When alarming signals about the uncontrolled inflow of grain began to grow, the authorities downplayed the importance of the problem. According to former Minister of Agriculture Henryk Kowalczyk, "Ukrainian grain does not fill the Polish market and does not pose a threat to Polish farmers," the publication noted.
The Polish ministry is convinced that the former minister, urging farmers not to sell grain and rapeseed, increased chaos in the market and misled them with the promise of high prices.
It was only in December 2022 that the former Minister of Agriculture informed the European Commission about the "grain crisis". As a result, it was only in April 2023 that Poland submitted an application to the EC to reimpose duties on Ukrainian grain. In mid-2023, a ban was imposed on the import of agricultural products from Ukraine, the report says.
"The situation caused by excessive grain imports has shown that no tools have been developed to counteract the destabilization of the Polish agricultural market. Agricultural policy, devoid of planning and market analysis, lacked long-term and far-sighted actions," the report of the Supreme Audit Office of Poland states.
Background. On October 6, Ukraine suspended its complaints against Poland, Hungary and Slovakia in the WTO.