The global food economy, served and shaped via state and corporate control of the food chain, has resulted in unquantifiable levels of pollution, destruction and exploitation in every dimension of agriculture, from soil to seed, to plant, to animal and to man. In other words: our existence.

As we approach the second decade of the 21^st century, it is becoming abundantly clear that an entirely new vision, understanding and implementation is required in order for agriculture to truly serve its original purpose of feeding humanity (all peoples) with good quality, affordable and mostly local foods in ways that do not harm the environment.

In order to make this wholesale shift it is necessary to entirely step aside from State and corporate control of the food chain. No compromise is possible here. Maintaining and re establishing the genuine independence of farmers throughout the world is a prerequisite for our survival as sentient, healthy human beings.

Non participation in the corporately controlled global market place must, in order to be effective, be accompanied by the widespread implementation of localised, quality food production and consumption practices. Practices that bring into close proximity the food grower and the food consumer; at the same time – by-passing entirely, the corporate multiple chains that profit by keeping them separate. This is the only way that genuine accessibility of optimum condition foods and medicinal plants can be ensured for billions of people throughout the World.

Continuing to adhere to the present corporate and state controlled food and farming regimes means that:

• Farmer’s time honoured right to save their seeds and to cultivate, distribute and trade the produce resulting from these seeds will continue to be subverted, curtailed and stolen.
• People’s right to perpetuate the biodiversity of locally adapted native plants, herbs and animals will be denied.
• People’s rights to gain lawful access to unused or barren land for the purpose of growing food for their own consumption in ways that do not harm the environment will be blocked.
• People’s time honoured right to carry on the daily operations of good farming practice unhindered by state and corporate power structures, will be denied.

It is the obligation of head’s of state to consult the people, in advance, about any new laws or alterations of the current law and any political questions concerning agriculture.

“Farming for the People with the People” therefore calls for all farmers, growers and sympathetic citizens, to take back control over their destinies and to join together to free our agricultural practices from the corporate treadmill of destruction and despair to which they now are tied.

At the same time, we call upon the Polish government, and all national governments, to act NOW on the demands of the vast majority of their citizens to:

• Ban all forms of genetic engineering in agriculture, horticulture, silviculture and fisheries.
• Withdraw all financial support for factory farming regimes that dehumanise agriculture and debase the animal kingdom.
• Prohibit, without exception, any and all patenting of plants, animals, their traits and genes, as well as patents on breeding methods. Thereby making it unlawful to attempt to exercise control over biodiversity.

Every Country should have the right to protect its food sovereignty.

We call for a people led and people owned renaissance of agriculture. One which will liberate the creativity and ingenuity of man and draw inspiration from the time honoured peasant and family farming practices that still form the foundation of self sufficient, sustainable and ecological agricultural production throughout the world.

Please feel free to use and adopt in your Country!

This document was ratified on the occasion of the 10^th anniversary of the International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside (ICPPC) www.icppc.pl

during the seminar “Food Sovereignty, Self Sufficiency and the Family Farm”

November 20/21 2010.

The small peasant farms of Poland form the bedrock of traditional farming practices in this highly diverse and relatively unspoiled Country. I say ‘relatively’, because over the past decade Poland has been subjected to a full frontal corporate and EU attack upon it’s indigenous resources  – industrial as well as agricultural.

However, inspite of a big post Communist sell off of national industries and a predictable fascination in capitalist ‘free market’ carrots, Poland retains a certain solidity and is not yet wedded to the urban inspired life style that so strongly influences UK socio-economic patterns.

Around 22% of the Polish working population are engaged in agricultural pursuits and farming remains Poland’s single largest gross domestic product earner.

There are still approximately one and a half million Polish farms with an average size of seven hectares, spread across the Country. They form a colourful patchwork quilt of fertile land strips  that remind one of what the mediaevil English strip farms must have once looked like, spreading out around the villages they supplied.

The great majority of these farms have owner occupier status, but there is a considerable amount of  informal renting between farmers looking for a few extra hectares, or a little extra income.

There are no enforced privacy laws on this land. One can walk freely over the fields and only if one deliberately damages growing crops is their likely to be any retribution from the farmer.

Hedges are scarce and fences non existant on most of the small farms. Demarkations between seperately owned strips of land are only known to the owners.

What is most striking to the Western European outsider is that these small holdings are working models of a subsistance farming model long since abandoned in our part of the world. The majority use no, or only very minimal amounts of chemical inputs.

All biodegradeable materials are recycled, crops are rotated and farm yard manures are well utilised. Small 35 horse power tractors and traditional working horses combine to provide the main power requirements. Additionally, most of such farms utilize local woodland areas (legally) to access their fire wood requirements. Wood fuel forms a key part of farmhouse winter heating and cooking needs.

These farmsteads could be described as ‘organic by default’. Very few are officially registered as ‘organic’, although it would only take a small adjustment in their practices to do so.. There is a very limited local market for certified organic produce in Poland, perhaps because the traditional food is already of a high quality and flavour and few consumers seem ready to pay more for something with an organic label on it.

The main production interest in this domain comes from somewhat larger farmers, mostly located in central and north western Poland, keen to improve their incomes by exporting their products to Germany, the UK and elsewhere in Europe.

There are said to be around five hundred thousand work horses still engaged in tilling the land and  working the forests in Poland. These beasts occupy an important place in the overal economy and ecology of Polish smallholdings, as they compare most favourably with tractors in their ability to work the land with a light ecological footprint and to transform the fruits of the land into inexpensive pulling power.

There is little need to painstakingly substantiate this fact, as the simple reality described below adequately conveys the message:

* The horse requires a diet of renewable energy in the form of home grown hay and oats, whereas the tractor requires a diet of non renewable and finite fuel in the form of oil and diesel.

* The tractor’s construction/manufacture and upkeep also relies heavilly on the same oil based energy source, whereas the horse arrives in this world as part of a natural breeding cycle requiring no additional energy inputs.

*The tractors life span may be a fraction longer than the work horse’s. However, providing the farmer has a mare, she will reproduce and provide many generations of working horses that will still be working the land long after the tractor has expired.

*The foals that are not needed to grow on for immediate farmwork are sold at a good profit.

*Tractors cannot reproduce (yet!) therefore there is only one opportunity to get a financial return on their second hand value.

* The costs entailed in buying a tractor and keeping it in a good state of repair during it’s working life, far exceed any vetinary costs entailed in maintaining the condition of the workhorse over the same period of time. Local medicinal herbs remain naturally integrated in the meadows, so farm animals benefit from the natural diversity of a species rich diet.

*The soil over which a tractor repeatedly passes is steadilly compacted and looses it’s capacity for free drainage and good nutrient recycling, thus negatively affecting yields. The horse’s more gentle ,  footprint circumvents such problems and helps the soil to retain it’s optimum levels of fertility.

*The horse contributes to the overal fertility of the farm via the manure and urine passed during the passage of his/her life. The tractor contributes a negative emmissions balance via CO2 and other related pollutants.

*The horse and it’s master (plus friends) form a close and often mutually supportive relationship. Children also benefit and greatly enjoy the horse’s company.

These are just some of the main attributes that Polish farmers – and all others who work with    horses around the world – will have discovered during the course of their lives.

The only clear advantage attributable to the tractor is that it can do most of the jobs 20% faster than the work horse. This does not apply to tree trunk haulage in the forests.

The amount of land required to fulfill the workhorse’s dietary requirements (1 to 1.5 acres per horse as a rough rule of thumb) has to be taken into account in the overal scheme of things. However, this has to be set against running the tractor on non renewable imported oil based fuels coming from hundreds if not thousands of miles away.

It is worth noting the example taken from a US farm study conducted over a forty year period on a thirty acre mixed farmstead in Michigan. In this assessment, a significant net revenue, not directly attributable to the sale of agricultural produce, is ultimately accrued to the work horse owner.  According to the  report, a positive revenue of approximately $21,000 is notched up over this period of time, because the owner specifically benefits from the sale of his workhorse’s prodgeny. The equivalent position for the same sized mixed tractor powered farm, where the tractor is traded in every ten years for a new one, is a net cost of $70,000. (Chet Kendell, Michigan, Rural Heritage magazine, Spring 2005).

As President of the International Coalition  to Protect the Polish Countryside, I spend a considerable amount of time fighting to defend the survival of the Polish peasant farms.  Jadwiga Lopata,  founder and vice President of ICPPC, with whom I work, grew up on a small peasant farm and retains a strong belief in the key role such farms play in protecting the rich biodiversity of the countryside.

Poland is indeed blessed with a remarkable variety of indigenous wild plants and an equally impressive native farmland bird count. A recent RSPB report stated that Poland retained a 40% higher native bird population than any other Country in Europe.

At the last national count, there were 44,000 pairs of nesting storks still choosing Poland as their summer residence, a figure far exceeding any other Country.

All this goes to show that these farmers must be doing something right. The wildlife thrives on the mixed traditional farmland with it’s minimal use of agrichemicals and the perpetuation of native, non hybridised crops.  The countryside’s peasant farmers continue to take pride in the fact that they can feed their families and sell any small surplus locally. Seven hectares may be the average farm size for the whole Country, but many farms in southern Poland are much smaller.

The largest farms, many with foreign owners, are mostly situated in the north and west of the Country. Some of these holdings are many thousands of hectares in size and are largely agrichemically dependent  monocultural cereal enterprises, geared to taking advantage of the export market and EU subsidy payments.

Many of such farms occupy land once run as State Co-operatives by the pre 1989 Communist regime. However, the Communists never succeeded in establishing the widespread large scale co-operative farms typically found in Checkoslovakia and Hungary at the same point in history. The Polish peasants effectively resisted all attempts to remove them from the land.

These robust farmers demonstrate an extraordinary blend of skills. It is common for the farmer and his family to build and equip their own home, dig their well and even construct a makeshift tractor. Their wives are equally adept in the art of traditional ‘fridge-free’ food preservation, butter and cheese making, general livestock managemment and home sewing skills.

All in all this amounts to about the best model we have in Europe for a low carbon footprint society of the future. It is streaks ahead of even the most fastidious “first world” organic practitioners.

Ironically however, the European Union is demanding the “restructuring and modernising” of Polish agriculture just at the time when their own ‘best practice’ model agribusiness farms are being slated for their major contribution to Global Warming and poorly maintained soils.

It is an iniquitous position. One ounce of good honest common sense in the right hands would be enough to ensure a reversal of such unmistakeably misplaced policy decisions .

As it is, through the imposition of completely inappropriate ‘hygiene and sanitary’ standards, EU bureaucrats have found the perfect weapon for driving Poland’s small farmers off the land. Such    land clearances are a precondition for the official ‘restructuring’ of small peasant farms into large agribusiness enterprises designed to supply the burgeoning number of hypermarket chains (led by Tesco) sprouting up indiscriminately across the land.

As we in the UK – and others throughout Western Europe – have experienced to our cost over the

past three decades, the bacteriological police have ruthlessly executed their task of imposing completely inappropriate and costly sanitary conditions upon those farms that can least afford to comply with them.

For thousands upon thousands of farms already struggling to cope with the inequalities of a rapidly expanding global food market, the imposition of these new hygiene standards is the final straw.

To their great credit, there are a fair number of small peasant farmers in Poland who remain unwilling to comply with such exigencies. They continue to hand milk their cows and sell their dairy produce to the neighbours. To retain the cow’s straw bedding and shun the concrete demanded by officialdom. To let the swallows fly into their barns and animal sheds rather than denying them access, as demanded by the EU.

We see such farmers every day, sitting nonchantly astride their characteristic horse carts and slowly moving down the Malopolska village streets. They move at a speed perfectly in tune with the rythm of their farming life styles. A gentle pace which allows the vast majority of modern life to go speeding past in a noxious cloud of carbon dioxide fumes.

The major question is, can this peasant resistance, which already defeated the Communist regime’s attempt to take over their land, now be extended to the wider farming population? This would include the medium sized family farms that have been particularly badly caught by government exhortations to modernise and specialise, only to find find themselves economically squeezed dry by the rock bottom supermarket prices subsequently offered for their mass produced commodities.

If dissatisfaction with government, European Union CAP policies and globalized corporate agribusiness should spread across the majority of Polands extensive acreages, we could be in for a big surprise.

In the meantime we continue to do our best to support and promote all well intentioned attempts to maintain, or to wrest back control of  time honored, sustainable farming sytems and the rugged independent life styles that go with them. It’s a fundamental commitment that we all need to make and a reality we may well have to face ourselves – in the not too distant future.

Julian Rose
January 2008

Introduction:

The Polish Countryside is the single greatest resource base of the Nation.

The nurturing of it’s health and welfare therefore needs to be given the highest priority.

There is a great need (and opportunity) at this moment in history, to initiate a bold plan to unite the key social, environmental and economic elements of country life and thus prevent it continuing to suffer a slow death.

European/World Agriculture in Crisis:

Because of the rapid changes that have taken place during the past three decades, many traditional countryside values are now under threat. Some have already reached breaking point.

Throughout Europe, the health of the environment, agricultural communities and food quality have been undermined by large scale corporate agribusiness with the sole ambition of maximising profits.

This has caused a huge rupture in the continuity and equilibrium of rural life. US style supermarket chains, industrial agriculture and European Union hygiene and sanitary regulatory controls – as well as subsidies designed to benefit large scale farming enterprise, have combined to stifle the natural entrepreneurial instincts of farming communities and have opened Europe up to exploitation by the corporate promoters of the global market place.

Poland is now coming under the shadow of this regime.

In the rush to supply the increasingly dominant supermarket chain’s huge demand for large volumes of cheap food, pharmaceutical inventions and genetic engineering are being given precedence over land wisdom. Genetically modified organisms and cloned sheep and pigs are just the latest in a line of laboratory techniques designed to promote this agenda and to work against the wishes of the people, in Poland and throughout Europe.

Poland has the unique opportunity to by-pass this destructive course. Capitalism, in the hands of corporate imperialists and weak government has proved to be as destructive as Communism in the hands of a centralised politburo.

Poland’s Opportunity:

Of all the Countries in Europe, Poland is best placed to reverse the momentum of the destructive trends described above.

Many small and medium sized peasant and family farms are still operational, but only just.

Their owners, while not necessarily forward looking, retain a priceless knowledge of the land and the ability to maintain it in optimum condition from generation to generation. Mostly it is unpolluted by pesticides and retains relatively high levels of soil fertility. Consequently, a rich tapestry of plant and bird diversity, unequalled anywhere in Europe, continues to enrich the Polish countryside. It is an untold wealth and provides the base upon which Polish citizens will have to rely in the future and upon which National Food Security depends.

However, these family farms are now under enormous pressure from

the European Union and The ‘global marketplace’. It is the European Commission’s stated intention to ‘restructure’ Polish agriculture and make it conform to the model of the soul-less, sanitised and mechanized ‘agribusiness’ described above.

In order to achieve such a ‘modernisation’ programme, more than one million farmers must be driven off the land and into the cities, according to senior figures in the European Commission, adding to already acute unemployment problems. The same ‘restructuring’ process has been forced on every other EU country over the past 3 decades, with devastating effects on rural employment, food quality, soil fertility, biodiversity and human health.

Current Destruction of Local and National Natural Resources:

The infrastructure which supports diverse family farming in Poland is already in an advanced stage of crisis. More than 60% of small and medium sized milk and meat processing plants and approximately the same number of local abattoirs have already fallen to EU sanitary and hygiene regulations that have little or no connection with maintaining healthy food and healthy people. Thousands of farmers have already been forced into bankruptcy through the closure of these vital links in the chain.

Poor quality imported milk, meat and vegetable produce is replacing high quality, home grown, Polish foods and at subsidy backed distorted prices.

The sole beneficiaries of this agenda are the large multinational hypermarket chains and the large scale farming enterprises that supply them. UK research has shown that over 250 small businesses go bankrupt every time a new supermarket is opened.

Intensive lobbying by large companies and the main supermarket chains, has established a monopoly of agricultural business between large, intensive farms and the major multiple chains. The majority of small and medium sized farms are simply eclipsed. Those that remain and apply for EU subsidies become enslaved by a distant and detached bureaucracy which decides and controls every aspect of agricultural production.

Poland As A Pioneer of Positive Change:

Our job is to rescue Poland from this fate and to build in it’s place a new vision

of a thriving, independent and largely decentralised, agriculture and mixed rural economy which will eventually be recognised as a model for other countries, both in Europe and the World. It is a radical but essentially ‘common sense’ agenda.

This undertaking calls for an agricultural/countryside policy which links traditional and environmentally friendly forms of land management to a new and innovative use of natural resources and renewable energy technologies. It centres on a pluralistic and mixed rural economy that encourages a wide variety of small and medium sized enterprises to be established in rural areas currently over reliant on agriculture as the main employment generator.

The goal will be to re establish food and energy sovereignty at the local, regional and national level.

This will involve a revival of country towns as trading ‘hubs’ coupled to national targets for renewable energy, food and building material self sufficiency over the coming years.

This should emphasise the potential of geothermal and hydro power as well as biomass production for regional heating and electricity generation.

Incorporated into this approach will be the need to sustain new vocational (hands-on) educational and employment opportunities for young people, required for the realisation of the overall “Greening of Poland”. A direct link into the creative arts is important to provide fresh momentum and a new sense of excitement concerning the challenges involved in establishing new opportunities in the countryside. ‘Start up’ appropriate local business opportunities – and new or adapted buildings – must be supported by National government to give youth the incentive to develop active employment in Poland.

A GMO free Poland:

National Agricultural Policy must ensure that all farming, forestry and energy production is carried out according to methods that combine proven ecological conservation with meeting the basic needs of the population for food, shelter and fuel. There is no need – and no place – for massively costly and high risk developments, such as nuclear power stations or intensive chemical and GMO farming in this scenario. The risks far outweigh the advantages. Neither is there any place for the import of seeds and plants for bio-fuel production. Utilising indigenous plants, trees and seeds is a far more effective way of meeting the Country’s green energy requirements than relying on mono cultural practices that utilise toxic chemicals and as much (if not more) energy than they ever give back.

The global export market can no longer be the main target for realising economic returns to farmers. It has already failed all but the biggest. The supply chain must now be internalised and greatly shortened. Some exports to surrounding European markets should be maintained.

There are guidelines how to achieve internalised food security laid out under the ‘Proximity Principle’ (author, Julian Rose circa 1998). The priority is to provide the basic needs of all population centres from natural resources drawn from the area of land immediately surrounding them. If there is a specific local shortage, this should then be sourced from the next closest area of availability .. and so on throughout the country.

Where there is a surplus, it can be used to make up any shortfall in other adjoining areas.

The Proximity Principle particularly applies to food, fuel, fabrics, minerals, water and energy. It is an essential component in the creation of genuine ‘sustainable development’. Only when all local, regional and national needs have been met internally, should the export market be utilised for any remaining surplus. Low ‘food kilometres’ are part of the targets for all nations today. A big reduction in road freighted commodities is essential to maintaining environmental and human health.

At a time of acute environmental stress and the ever present threat of global weather disruption, specific targets for reducing fossil fuel energy consumption and a switch to renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, geothermal, methane, micro-hydro and biomass, are essential worldwide, and of great importance to Poland.

Adherence to the Proximity Principle, plus a major energy saving drive in all areas of domestic and industrial life, will be essential in order to redress the currently ‘out of balance’ industrial and household emissions position in Poland.

The process of harnessing ‘new solutions to old problems’ will stimulate the national, regional and local economy and create jobs that would otherwise not exist.

It is a dynamic ‘greening’ agenda, similar to that currently being pursued by Barak Obama in The USA, in order to rescue the collapsing US economy.

The Foundation for Sustainable Development:

A disregard for the subtle fabric of our precious planet has led to a fragmentation of the social and economic cohesion of previously stable communities as well as the

near collapse of much native flora and fauna.

Once one has established the correct stimulus to encourage country towns and villages to purchase the majority of their food, fuel and fibre from local sources, many other neglected indigenous social and cultural benefits will fall naturally into place, including the rekindling of a pride in village and town life and the revitalising of positive traditions and skills that will otherwise be lost forever.

By initiating incentives to promote the purchase of ‘local food’, schools, restaurants, government institutions and small shops will directly stimulate employment in the local economy and support farmers who otherwise will have no market in which to sell their produce and support their families.

Computer models can be developed that demonstrate the Proximity Principle in action

and certain market towns can be chosen to become pioneer projects, attracting national and EU funding. Government agencies and advice offices will also have an important role to play in implementing local and regional ‘green’ action plans.

A genuine renaissance of interconnected rural and town life, giving hope and security to young and old, can be achieved providing this holistic, joined-up approach is carefully followed. The re linking of town and country in a truly organic and sustainable way, is not just an ‘interesting idea’, it is a necessity of our time. Our planet, no less the Polish countryside, cannot absorb any more wasteful exploitation of it’s rapidly diminishing resources, without self destructing.

Everyone has a part to play in ensuring that a better world can be passed on to the generations that follow us.

Julian Rose, Stryszow, February 2009

“One cannot solve present problems by using the same thinking that produced them”

Albert Einstein.

Objective

Designate a “rural development hub” in the County which would act as a model for integrated sustainable development at the local level and catalyst for rural development.

Set in motion solutions for a number of key concerns as outlined in the 1999 Oxfordshire Farming Study.

Justifications

The concept of “sustainable development” has been adopted by many agencies with an interest in the future of the countryside, enterprise and conservation, notably SEEDA (the South East of England Development Agency). Yet it lacks tangible examples and often confuses rather than clarifies.

Preamble to Project

It has been said “Oxfordshire Pivots around Market Towns.”

This important observation holds a clue for a successful remedy to the present rural crisis.

Historically, the County Market Town was the axis around which trade in agricultural and artisan products turned. Its architectural design sets the market place at the centre, and has access roads radiating out into the surrounding countryside, designed to facilitate the easy movement of people and goods.

The dynamic activities of the market place have declined steadily throughout the 20^th Century as the boundaries of trade have moved into the global arena, and the local resource base has lost its significance. In the last decade or two there has been little more than token market place trading in these once bustling centres. They have in effect “died” – unless you consider that insurance companies, travel and estate agents plus the odd tea room constitute a thriving town centre! Most people living in the typical market town no longer work locally, nor shop locally, nor have any connection with the resource base of their region.

All this could change, however, and it is my belief that now is the time to embrace the potential for the rejuvenation of the market town and rural hinterland. Focussing on the creation of such a hub would:

1. Counteract the debilitating effects of the current crisis in agriculture and its attendant knock-on effects on the rural economy
2. Develop a rural model that can demonstrate sustainable development through a multidisciplinary approach covering social, economic and environmental criteria.
3. Draw on government’s current sustainable indicator targets (including quality of life). These include significantly cutting back car and truck miles, CO² emissions and commercial/household waste.

The project framework

“In the past, focus has centred mainly on improving labour productivity. In the future, greater emphasis will be needed on resource efficiency. We need to break the link between continued economic growth and increasing use of resources and environmental impacts” (Rt Hon John Prescott MP, Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions).

The project will centre on an existing market town (current preference, Faringdon), and will seek input from local farmers, business people, and those active in education and the arts, in addition to the relevant local authorities. It is envisaged as a five year plan.

1. FOOD FARMING

Develop a local (under supplied) market as opposed to global (oversupplied) market through forging closer links between locally productive farm land and the town’s requirement for primary, seasonal agricultural produce via markets, distribution outlets, existing shops, restaurants and public authority/school canteens.

2. ENERGY

Develop a ‘renewable energy’ contract with local woodland, biomass and alternative crop production enterprises to supply an increasing percentage of the energy requirements from the local sustainable resource base. Solar and wind energy may also be incorporated.

3. FABRIC and FIBRE

Explore and exploit the potential for local renewable building/construction materials to be utilized in meeting demand of light industrial and other appropriate constructions.

4. SOCIAL

Determine key quality of life indicators for local population. Develop ‘village appraisal’ models, affordable housing agenda, local job opportunities and rural transport networks.

5. ARTS

Explore potential for revival of creative arts which can both complement and catalyse the overall project. Draw local youth into creative programmes.

6. EDUCATION

Tap into local education authority (and private sector) as key participants/partners of the evolving project. School could play a central role in assessing targets for local food and energy requirements of the market town.

7. ECONOMICS

The underlying economic theme within the project is to view the market town as an ‘innovation hub’ able to build on the potential of small and medium-sized businesses, to engage in new partnerships and innovative marketing concepts within the overall pattern of local sustainability objectives.

8. TECHNOLOGY

Develop the technology for telecottage and advanced communications through embracing ‘the wired region’ initiative favoured by SEEDA. Apply this to an advanced marketing strategy for the enhancement of local/regional trading.

Julian Rose

March 2000, updated May 2001

The Proximity Principle

The Proximity Principle - 2nd page

The Proximity Principle - 3rd page