LICENSE TO FARM

I'm nearing the end of my week in Poland doing farm seminars and trying to keep all the interesting elements of Polish farming in my head to share. 

                  Perhaps the most amazing one today was learning that you can't just buy land and begin farming.  You need a license.  This license can be acquired numerous ways.  If you inherit a farm, you're grandfathered.  If you go to college and major in some sort of agricultural curriculum, you automatically get a license.  You can farm with someone else and after four years of accredited apprenticeship get a license.  You can take an on-line course, pass the test, and get the license.  The point is you can't just buy land and begin farming. 

                  I spent the afternoon today on a wonderful Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm with 85 subscriptions.  They do vegetables, eggs, and pastured broilers.  They're two years into a nice orchard spaced wide enough to graze cows and chickens underneath; the first cows are coming this year. 

                  They get half a dozen inspections a year from various agencies.  You can't have chickens outside without being completely netted so they can't interact with any wild bird.  You can't have pigs outside unless you have a double fence inspected by an agency.  If you want to cut a tree--any tree--the clerk of the local jurisdiction has to come out and certify that you can cut the tree.  I can't remember all the permissions, but they are on a scale that makes your head spin, especially if you're anywhere close to a libertarian. 

                  Farmers receive $200 per acre direct subsidy from the EU just for farming.  If you produce anything, you get the $200 per acre.  This makes farmland inordinately expensive and farmers inordinately dependent.  This is why they riot when any mention of cutting subsidies is entertained at the EU.

                  Last night on our way to the next town for the next presentation, I got out of the car and was overwhelmed with the smell of manure.  My hosts explained that it's illegal to spread manure from Dec. 1-Feb. 27, so March 1 they start pumping lagoons and spreading.  It's quite an odor.  Most farms are massive operations. 

                  After WWII, when Churchill and Roosevelt gave Poland to the Soviet Union as thanks for helping defeat the Nazis, the Soviets turned Poland into a grain production area.  What had been mixed livestock and primarily pasture became massive monocrop acreages.  Today, most of that grain is sold to the Middle East.  I'm drooling over the rich, black soils I see for miles and miles. 

                  Complete chemical farming dominates the farmscape but these soils are only into this abuse by 50 years.  They were generally well stewarded by smallholding livestock-dominated agriculture prior to the Soviets.  That protocol is now stamped aggressively on the farmscape, exposing countless acres, naked and without cover crops, to the ravishing winter climate.  While they look fertile today, they are only 50 years into a devastating regimen that another 50 years will surely expose. 

                  Pastured pigs are all but illegal due to African Swine Fever.  Pastured chickens are all but illegal due to Avian Influenza scare.  Every animal bigger than a chicken or turkey needs to be registered with the government.  Factory farming dominates the agriscape certainly as much as in the U.S. and perhaps more.   

                  Perhaps the biggest difference with the U.S. is the magnitude of the collapse of regional abattoirs and small scale livestock production.  It has been gratifying, though, to meet liberty-minded rebel farmers who either dare to be illegal or figure out work-arounds to survive.  The "go rogue" mindset is here, and I'm dumping fuel into it as fast I as I can. 

                  Many farmers lament their "no firearms" policy.  That makes handling predators a real problem.  Without guns, they can't shoot a possum that gets into the chickens.  They can't even shoot a wild boar--but they can call someone with a license who can come and shoot it.  Unlike in the U.S., these shot wild pigs can enter the commercial meat market.  I had it for lunch today; delicious. 

                  As with all societies, regulations are all over the board.  The EU bans glyphosate but the U.S. makes it necessary for national security.  The EU allows wild pigs to enter the meat market and the U.S. doesn't.  The U.S. lets anyone be a farmer; Poland gives farm permits like the U.S. gives drivers' licenses.  What's considered dangerous in one country is considered perfectly safe in another, and vice versa. 

                  What political psychology makes this whacky, inconsistent perception of safe and unsafe, anyway?