Which way will we direct the Lithuanian village?

   "In the face of threats, farmers also spoke about the crisis. The prices of fuel, fertilizers, electricity are going up, so nothing good is expected.

 

     It is not surprising that large and small farmers are struggling with the “ceiling” of payments to farms provided for in the Lithuanian Agricultural Strategy.

 

    It has long been no secret that the Agriculture Council (AGC), which unites large farmers, is in conflict with the Chamber of Agriculture (COA), which protects the interests of small and medium-sized farms.

 

     But recently, this conflict has moved to the political level. When, at the end of last year, the AGC accused the Minister of Agriculture K. Navickas of all possible sins and demanded his resignation, he was protected by farmers' organizations concentrated in the COA. However, at that time, the Ministry of Agriculture did not take public action in defense of the Minister, when the representatives of the farmers claiming his head  began to picket by the Ministry of Agriculture. Prime Minister I. Šimonytė defended K. Navickas, and the presidium of the Conservative Party that delegated him also expressed confidence in him, but formed a working group to strengthen the dialogue with farmers. However, no dialogue has taken place.

 

    The Seimas also infiltrated this contradiction. The Rural Affairs Committee (KRK), headed by the representative of the Liberal Movement V.Pranckietis, stood across K.Navickas and proposed to substantially reevaluate the strategic plan for agriculture and rural development of Lithuania for 2023–2027 prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture and approved by the European Commission (EC). It is not about any theoretical scenarios for the future of the countryside, but about real and big money.

 

    The strategic plan of the Ministry of Agriculture provides to reduce direct payments to farmers getting more than 60 thousand euros by more than 85% and redistribute this money to small and medium-sized farms.

 

    Understandably, large farmers did not like such a reduction in payments, and this may have been one of the main reasons why their organizations demanded that Minister Navickas be replaced by another politician.

 

    They say that this cut in benefits would hinder the development of Lithuanian farms and hinder effective competition with Western farmers.

 

    But small and medium-sized farmers saw this provision as beneficial to them and support the head of the ministry that drafted it.

 

    On the other hand, the limitation on direct payments is also in line with the EC's policy of maintaining small family farms and developing organic farming, since large-scale industrial farming, while efficient, is damaging the environment much more.

 

    Until now, half of EU money went to only 3% of farmers running large Lithuanian farms, although they still complain that Lithuanians receive much lower direct payments than Germans or French. Not only that, even about 80 percent of the money, the funds of the Rural Development Program not only in Lithuania, but also in the whole EU went to large farmers. The consequence of this policy is that the big ones have grown bigger and richer and the small farms started disappearing. The "ceiling" of payments would allow large farmers to cut off part of the payments calculated on the basis of the area of ​​land they own and channel these funds to small and medium-sized farms, usually run by a single family.

 

    Young farmers, who have not been able to buy more land and are unable to compete with financially strong large farms, are very interested in this. Their representatives state that due to the establishment of large farmers in Lithuanian agriculture, young people do not want to farm at all, they go to cities or abroad.

 

    The Seimas' Rural Affairs Committee, which aroused the anger of small and medium-sized farmers' organizations, offered to raise the upper limit for the reduction of payments to the previously planned 100 thousand euros. The level of EUR 60 thousand was lowered by the Ministry of Agriculture. Getting more than 100 thousand eurosn this case, no one would be paid, but this would limit support to the largest farms, and farmers managing up to 1,400 hectares of land would not lose anything. Representatives of small and medium-sized farms claim that the limit is being raised too high and demand that the benefits be cut from 60 thousand. euros.

 

    The COA put V. Pranckietis on the same grief as the  large farmers had previously threatened K. Navickas - COA expressed no confidence in V. Pranckietis and demanded that he resign. Now, the ruling coalition, which is engaged in all other matters, will probably have to find time for this puzzle as well - to approve the Rural Affairs Committee's proposal or the minister's plan. This could create another rift between the ruling parties, as well as ignite disagreements within them, and the opposition is likely to be torn apart in different directions by the influence of interest groups.

 

    When the AGC demanded the resignation of K. Navickas, he said that he did not believe in this organization because under his leadership the representatives of large farmers do not open the doors of the ministry with a foot and do not dictate their conditions as they used to be in the past."