WARSAW: Throwing smoke bombs and lighting fires, thousands of angry farmers demonstrated in Warsaw on Wednesday against EU regulation and cheap Ukraine imports, with police reporting that two officers had been injured and a dozen protesters detained.

Some demonstrators tried to force their way past security railings onto parliament grounds, according to police. Farmers also organised tractor blockades on roads across the country.

“Behavior threatening the safety of our officers, including throwing cobblestone at them, cannot be ignored,” police said on X, formerly Twitter. “A couple of police officers were injured. At the moment, a dozen people have been detained,” they added.

Polish farmers have been blocking border crossings with Ukraine since last month to protest at what they say is unfair competition from goods entering from Ukraine. “I want to produce healthy food but we’re importing products lower in quality than ours with which we can’t compete in terms of price,” said Jan Kepa, who has a farm in southwestern Poland. “We still have hope but we’ve been protesting for over a month and so far there’s been no satisfying solution for us,” he said.

Ukraine has seen its agriculture sector crippled by Russia’s invasion in 2022. Many of its major export routes through the Black Sea have been blocked and its farmland rendered unusable by warfare.

In a bid to help Kyiv economically, the European Union in 2022 scrapped tariffs on Ukrainian goods transiting the 27-nation bloc by road. But logistical problems mean a lot of the Ukrainian cereal exports destined for non-EU countries have accumulated in Poland, undercutting local producers.

The border blockades and grain dispute have strained ties between the neighbours, even as Poland has shown staunch support since the Russian invasion.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2024