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> you are here: In the Field | Europe | Poland | ||||
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to the programmes When the Communist governments of Eastern Europe collapsed at the end of the 1980s, few knew what to expect. Some hoped for instant Western-style wealth. Others were more realistic, wondering what the tide of Western market forces would bring. Many families, particularly on smaller farms in rural areas, have seen their incomes collapse. And one of the best ways to insure against the vagaries of market forces is to look beyond conventional farming and to adopt a diversity of sources of income. To prosper, they must be flexible and alert for new opportunities, whether from tourists anxious to soak up a rural idyll or processing of foodstuffs grown on their farms. Under Communism, Polish farmers were treated pretty well, as can be seen by the big houses across the countryside. They were never forced onto collective farms. And though their plots of land were small, they had guaranteed state markets and could sell privately, too. Kazimierz Opalacz remembers the 1980s, when he first started on his small farm in Borowa village, north of the town of Mielec in southern Poland. "Then you could get a reasonable living." The state system meant that he sold everything he could produce, and the price was good. "After two years of farming we could get our own house and furnish it. We could afford to buy a car." But times have changed. Now prices are low, sales are not guaranteed. Many of his generation rely on the pensions of their parents and grandparents to put bread on their table, he says. Monica Janowski, a social anthropologist at the NRI, has been researching how east European farmers cope with the new economic environment. Life is much less secure for them than it was under Communism, she says. But there are also new opportunities, often in unconventional areas. "Farming livelihoods are becoming quite complex. They do many things besides farming," she says. "It's important to know what they are doing, how they are coping, so that we can see how they can be helped." The story of the Opalacz family is typical. Kazimierz manages the farm. But he also teaches in the village school. And his wife, Krystyna, regularly travels to Norway to work stints cleaning houses to supplement the family income. Farming is just a sideline for them now. The local mayor of Borowa district, Robert Rudski, says the tradition of holding down two jobs is not new here. With farm plots only 2-5 hectares in size, many farmers also worked in an aircraft factory in Mielec. "After the factory stopped in 1993, it was very difficult to keep a good standard of living for a family," he says. Further north in the rolling wooded hills of the Swieto Krzyskie area, Teresa Barwicka decided to add value to her farm in the village of Wzdól by going organic. People will pay higher prices for her vegetables, grain and meat because they are certified as uncontaminated by pesticides or other chemicals, she has found. Life is quite good now. "We decided we had to diversify our production, because the risks are smaller. If one thing goes wrong, then something else works out." Her diversification included building a summerhouse for tourists, and a miniature food-processing factory, where she pickles cabbages, mushrooms and cucumbers and makes apple vinegar and fermented beetroot, which is said to ward off cancer. But diversification is a lesson not everybody has taken up. Not far away live Janina Pawelec and her family. On a meagre two-hectare holding, they grow a few potatoes and keep a cow, a couple of pigs and some chickens. They barely make a living. "We decided we had to diversify our production, because the risks are smaller."-- Teresa Barwicka, farmer and agro-tourist host, in the village of Wzdól
Despite the poverty of people like Janina, the farmers of Poland still have it better than those in some other parts of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. In countries such as Georgia and Romania, where national economies have all but collapsed, many farmers live meagre largely subsistence lives, eating what they can grow. Starvation is an ever-present fear. Not surprisingly, these are the lands from which migrants are streaming into Western Europe, often illegally. The story of farmers in Eastern Europe is a reminder that the dividing line between the industrialised and developing world is not as clear as it sometimes appears. Farmers on all continents face the same kinds of problems: -- too little land, uncertain markets and fluctuating prices. Those who get by best often choose the same kinds of solutions to ensure their livelihoods: finding novel new crops, processing crops on the farm, inviting paying guests from the city to enjoy their clean, rural environment, exploiting the higher prices some will pay for organic produce, and sending other members of the household to work in cities or even abroad. Those who stick with farming on its own often lead very meagre lives indeed. Rural economies in the eastern Europe of today - as in much of the world - are much more complex than mere farming.
In the Field is a collaboration between the BBC World Service and the Natural Resources Institute of the University of Greenwich, supported by the Rural Livelihoods Department of the UK Government Department for International Development (DFID)
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