Next week, the Agrarian Chamber will decide on the organization of protests on May 22 in Prague

Commercial presentation Update: 2/05/2024 15:28
Issued by: 05/02/2024, 15:28

Prague – The Presidium of the Agrarian Chamber (AK CR) will decide next week whether to organize protests in Prague on May 22 with other non-governmental agricultural organizations. According to the Chamber, Minister of Agriculture Marek Výborný (KDU-ČSL) did not respond to proposals that would help farmers by the end of April, and downplays the problems. The Agrarian Chamber stated this in a press release today. ČTK is investigating the minister’s statement.

“No one needs to tell us that the problems of farmers cannot be solved in the streets. I am actively asking the Minister of Agriculture Marek Výborny for negotiations and I am trying to convey to him what crop growers and livestock breeders are dealing with on a daily basis. Unfortunately, so far without results that would were encouraging for farmers. They are desperate, they are frustrated and stop believing that anything can improve their situation,” said the president of the Agrarian Chamber, Jan Doležal.

According to Doležal, farmers have been talking about further protests, which would be more massive than the previous ones, for more than a month. Agricultural organizations proposed several measures to the government at the Diet in Brno on April 7, which they believe would help farmers. They demanded a written answer from the minister, but Výborný has already stated that any statement that representatives of the Agrarian Chamber, the Agricultural Union (ZS CR) or other non-governmental organizations are not informed or have not received an answer are not based on the truth. “I deal with them personally, I prefer that to sending letters,” said Výborný earlier.

The chamber claims that it has not received a response even from Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS), and the five-coalition government has thus made it clear that agriculture and the food industry are outside of its interest. That is why she supported the holding of other agricultural protests in the Czech Republic.

According to information from the Agricultural Union of the Czech Republic, protests are planned for June 4 in Brussels. On that day, it will also take place in other EU countries, for example in Poland, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Romania, Greece or Bulgaria. The chairman of the ZS CR, Martin Pýcha, expects that Czech farmers will also join the European protest on June 4.

In the Czech Republic, farmers’ protests last took place on March 20, when more than 1,600 pieces of agricultural machinery took to the roads. Farmers demand to support employment in the countryside with discounts on social insurance, to return the property tax to the level before the consolidation package or to cancel the taxation of the European operating subsidy from the first pillar of the common agricultural policy of the European Union and to limit imports from countries outside the EU. Another demand of the farmers is not to cut national support, and if the European Commission allows for an increase in extraordinary aid to farmers from European or national sources, the Czech Republic should do so to the maximum extent possible.

Vyborný has previously stated that this year the government will add 550 million crowns to the welfare of animals, increase investment support by 1.5 billion crowns, and next year will support employment in the countryside with discounts on social insurance by two billion crowns. However, what the farmers do not agree on, according to him, is the return of the property tax to the level before the consolidation package.

CR agriculture government Agrarian Chamber protest