After the EU gave its consent to the duty-free import of honey from Ukraine, Polish beekeepers were immediately threatened with ruin, because their product is much more expensive than cheap Ukrainian honey, Kresy wrote. The owners of local apiaries intend to fight: they have already joined the protests of farmers on the border with Ukraine.
Honey from Ukraine is actively flooding the Polish market, so local beekeepers are forced to suspend the work of their apiaries, Kresy reports. “Is it possible to sit idly by when family beekeeping farms disappear? Beekeepers and apiarists, who for generations have been producing the highest quality honey (about 60 zloty per litre) for Poles, are closing their apiaries. Why are they dying? Because honey from outside the European Union is imported to Poland in large quantities. We are talking about as much as 10,000 tons from Ukraine. In 2021 there were a record 38 thousand tonnes,” the Kurpiowskie Bractwo Bartne community is alarmed.
They call it a scandal that a 290kg barrel of honey from Ukraine costs only 4,300 PLN, while 1kg of honey costs 15 PLN. The beekeepers lament that the EU has given its consent to the duty-free export of honey from Ukraine to the EU.
“We sympathise with the Ukrainian people and small Ukrainian family apiaries. However, agricultural land in Ukraine does not belong to Ukrainians. The owners of the land in Ukraine are international agribusiness companies. They hold several million hectares of the most fertile land in Europe. And there is no ban on the use of GMOs and pesticides banned in the EU. Large industrial apiaries owned by international corporations produce cheap honey on thousands of hectares of rapeseed and sunflowers. For this production they do not pay taxes in Ukraine, because they are registered, for example, in Cyprus,” they explain.
Kresy says that Polish beekeepers have already joined the farmers’ protest at the border with Ukraine. “Polish beekeepers are already having problems selling honey in bulk,” one protester warned on Tuesday. At the same time, he noted that there are no stickers in shops saying it is Ukrainian honey. “The price of Ukrainian honey is below 10 zloty. They even talk about 4-5 zlotys per kilo. The price of Polish honey today on the purchase market is about 10-11 zloty, and it is difficult to sell it,” he admitted.
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