          For Love and Freedom on Clean Mother-Earth!
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"ECODEFENSE!inform" environmental inform-bulletin * number 32 *
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..............................................* NOVEMBER 1994 *
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 "ECODEFENSE!"
 Moskovsky prospekt 120-34
 236006 Kaliningrad/Koenigsberg
 Russia
 telephone +7 0112 437286
 E-mail: ecodefense@glas.apc.org

_______________________________________________________________
         BALTIC SEA REGION ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS BULLETIN
_______________________________________________________________

 CONTENT

     ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS

     VOLVO TO ASSEMBLY TRACKS NEAR WROCLAW LATE JANUARY 1995

ECODEFENSE!inform present
     THE TRANS-BALTIC NETWORK

Continuation
     POLAND'S CONSERVATIVE AGRICULTURE

_______________________________________________________________

* One from best  e-mail news conference  <pns.baltic>  closed.
People, who are interested, can call information in conference
<baltic.news>.
* Third issue  (Autumn'94) of ECODEFENSE!jounal  published  by
Koenigsberg's ECODEFENSE!    Content:    Orin    Langelle    -
Revolutionary Ecology; Judith Plant - Search Common Ground; 23
September direct action of  russian  environmentalists  around
President's administration  in Moscow;  Glasgow EF!  anti-road
campaign; and many other.  In Russian,  20 pages.  Contact and
subscription: Moskovsky pr.120-34, 236006 Kaliningrad, Russia,
tel +7 0112 437286, e-mail:ecodefense@glas.apc.org
* The office of Sustainable  Energy  News  together  with  the
INforSE-Europe Secretariat have moved to the  main  office  of
OVE, Danish    Organization    for    Renewable    Energy   in
Aarhus,Denmark. Contact: OVE, Sustainable Energy News, INforSE
c/o OVE, Skovvangsvej 191, 8200 Aarhus N, Denmark
Ph/fax: +45 8610-6466/-6168, e-mail: ove@pns.apc.org
* Oct. 31, 1994  Germany,ENVIRONMENT PROGRAM DRAFTED BY BUND TO
GUIDE NEW GOVERNMENT'S EARLY AGENDA DUSSELDORF (BNA) -- One  of
Germany's  largest  environmental groups has drafted a 10-point
environmental program for the new government to address
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     VOLVO TO ASSEMBLY TRUCKS NEAR WROCLAW LATE JANUARY 1995

     Wroclaw, oct.  26:  director general of volvo truck poland
goran  simonsson on wednesday told a news conference in wroclaw
that by the end of january,  1995 the company will open a plant
near wroclaw to assembly trucks.
     Volvo is now in talks, likely to end this week, with three
partners over the location of the plant. according to unoffici-
al information, the assembly shop will be set up in the commune
of dlugoleka.
     Simonsson declined to give the costs of the  planned  pro-
ject  announcing that "this will not be a low cost investment."
he said that the costs depend on whether the company will mana-
ge to buy or lease the land and facilities. The assembly shop's
initial employment will be around 100 workers  and  its  annual
production  capacity  is  estimated  at 1,000 vehicles but both
employment and production output will be gradually expanded de-
pending on the development of the polish market.
     Volvo truck poland started to assembly trucks at  the  car
plant in jelcz but as a result of the april tender for the pri-
vatisation of the company,  "sobieslaw zasada centrum s.a." was
chosen  a  strategic  investor.  An agreement between volvo and
jelcz expires on december 31, 1994.
     "We strongly believe in poland's market and that is why we
are ready to invest in our own plant. at present, we have a so-
me 50 per cent share in the sale of trucks.  we will supply po-
lish customers with over 500 trucks by the end  of  the  year,"
Simonsson explained.
                                                            PAP
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                THE TRANS-BALTIC NETWORK

The TransBalticNetwork unites all popular and non-governmental
forces that   work   for   a  Baltic  Sea  commuity  based  on
sustainable security!
The end  of  the  cold  war  and  the liberation of the Baltic
states has started a new era for the Baltic region.  Obstacles
to  cooperation  have  disappeared  and the possibilities  for
peaceful cooperation between all countries around  the  Baltic
Sea are toda lar
Economic cooperation  is   of   great   importance   for   the
development  of  the  area,  but so are cooperation in solving
common problems as pollution,  political and ethnic divisions.
The  Trans-Baltic  Network  (TBN)  is set up to strengthen the
cooperation between the popular forces around the  Baltic  Sea
that  work  for protection and restoration of the environment,
military disarmament, and respect for human rights. By joining
forces our Join the Trans-Baltic Network!
The Trans-Baltic  Network  For  Sustainable  Security  in  the
Baltic Sea Region!
The Trans-Baltic Network  has two functions:
1. TBN supports individuals and associations that are working,
or   want  to  work  for  a  Baltic  Sea  community  based  on
sustainable security.  This support  includes  linking  groups
that  work  with  related  issues,  providing  information and
arranging issue-oriented.
2. TBN  also  function  as  a  coordinator  of common projects
between the member  associations/individuals.  These  projects
concern  all activities that facilitate the establishment of a
community based on sustainable security in the region.
*
TBN and  the  Council  of  the Baltic Sea States To strengthen
cooperation between the  states  around  the  Baltic  Sea,  an
inter-govermental   organization   including  all  the  states
bordering  the  Baltic  Sea   was   founded   in   1992.   The
organization, the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS), has
initiated ever.
Sustainable security  TBN   seeks   to   achieve   sustainable
security. The concept includes political, social, economic and
ecological aspects of security as well  as  military  aspects.
TBN  believes  it  is  possible  to  create  regional security
through political and civil cooperation.
Background The  Trans-Baltic  Network  was  founded   by   the
politically   and   religiously   independent  nongovernmental
organizations  The  Baltic  International  Center  for   Human
Education  (Cooperation  for  Peace,  Baltic  Center)  (Riga),
Cooperation for Peace (Stockholm) and the others.
Membership TBN  is  open  for all individuals and associations
interested in working for  the  establishment  of  a  security
community  based on sustainable security in the Baltic Region.
As    member    of    the     Trans-Baltic     Network     the
association/individual receives:
- a newsletter
- participation in regional seminars,  conferences  and  other
activities
- access to organizational and activity support
- access to an activity/organization database
- access to TBNs electronic mail conference
The membership of TBN is  free  of  charge.  Associations  and
individuals  can  become  members  through  either  writing or
calling the organizers listed below.
For membership  &  more  information  -  contact  one  of  the
organizors!
In Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark contact:
Peace Union of Finland The Peace Station / Loktorget  SF-00520
HELSINKI,  Finland Phone: +358-(0)-141314 Fax: +358-(0)-147297
E-mail: comof100@nn.apc.org
Cooperation For Peace Lundagatan 56 S-117 28 STOCKHOLM, Sweden
Phone:    +46-(0)8-6697520    Fax:   +46-(0)8-849016   E-mail:
peacequest@nn.apc.org
Stockholm Peace Association  Box  11191  S-100  61  Stockholm,
Sweden  phone:  +46-(8)-393063  fax:  +46-(8)-6000443  e-mail:
fandstrom@nn.apc.org
In Estonia,  Latvia,  Lithuania,  Germany,  Poland  and Russia
contact:
Cooperation for Peace -The Baltic Center  Azenes  iela  16-239
LV-1048    RIGA,    Latvia    Phone:    +371-(2)-617787   Fax:
+371-(2)-212206 E-mail: bc@cfp.edu.lv
_______________________________________________________________

            POLAND'S CONSERVATIVE AGRICULTURE

by Piotr Andrzejewski
(continuation from issue 31)

In the 1980s, farmers firmly subscribed to a liberal vision of
the state order, a preference they made known during the Round
Table negotiations.  Since  then,  recession  and unemployment
have sent demand for food down  20%  and  cheap  foreign  food
products have  been  flowing  in  as  a  result of liberalised
foreign trade  regulations.  These   changes   soon   produced
effects. Now  farmers  are the most dedicated advocates of the
same welfare state they disowned only a short time ago, with a
substantial proportion  of the farmer community perceiving the
re-modelling of the state  and  economic  reforms  as  schemes
prejudicial to  the peasants and the agricultural sector.  The
Polish Peasant Party [PSL] has  sensed  these  sentiments  and
used them  adroitly.  On  the  one hand,  through articulating
concerns and claims of rural populations,  that  party  won  a
stable electorate; on the other hand, it has been a hostage of
small farm owners.  The net result is  that,  because  of  its
short-term political  interests,  the  PSL is not and couldn't
possibly be a champion of agricultural restructuring.
The emergence  of  larger  farms,  through the process of land
consolidation, is the essence of  agricultural  restructuring.
This process  reduces  the  demand  for labour and forces some
ex-owners of small farms to look  for  employment  beyond  the
agricultural sector.  Agriculture  restructuring  involves two
categories of outlays:  costs of equipping the enlarged  farms
with suitable  facilities  and  equipment  and  costs  (to  be
covered by the budget) of creating jobs for labour leaving the
agricultural sector.  Specialists  estimate  that,  even  at a
moderate pace of the restructuring,  1.2 million new jobs must
be created  before owners of uneconomic farms can be persuaded
to part with their land.  Obviously, at this moment the labour
market situation  does  not  facilitate  this operation.  With
registered unemployment standing at 17% of the national labour
force and   with  hidden  unemployment  believed  to  be  very
substantial (the  restructuring  of  coal  mining  alone  will
involve the loss of 150 thousand jobs),  migrating farm labour
will find competition on the labour market very intense.
The ruling   coalition's   economic   policy  hardly  reflects
attempts to change this undesirable state of  things.  On  the
contrary, "Report  of  Agriculture"  prepared  by minister [of
agriculture] Smietanko's staff pronounces "diverting resources
to agriculture and rural areas,  in subsidies and low-interest
loans [arranged] through the budget's increased involvement in
financing progress  in  agriculture  and rural infrastructure"
indispensable. In other words, instead of measures designed to
encourage and further genuine changes,  we will see bargaining
for more and more subsidies while  the  archaic  structure  is
preserved intact.   Minimum   prices   which   make  consumers
subsidise uneconomic  and  unwanted  crops  and  the   farming
sector's poor  performers  are  another  factor petrifying the
obsolete pattern  of  our  agriculture.  Let's  face  it:  the
consumers have  been  paying  for  the  archaic  structure  of
Poland's agriculture and the PSL's political comfort, and they
will continue to pay, more and more.
In the United States,  4,812 thousand farms collapsed  between
1935 and  1990.  The  2  million  which survived make a highly
diverse pattern:
    a narrow group of giant farms at one end of the spectrum
    and countless diminutive holdings quasi-farms, in fact,
    for their owners have long relied for non-farm sources
    of subsistence on the other.
In several  years,  the  500 largest farms will supply food to
half of the U.S. population.
    What does future hold for the Polish farming sector?
Will it  polarise,  into  commercial  peasant  farms  in   the
Wielkopolska, Kujawy  and  Pomerania regions on the one end of
the spectrum and huge sections  of  post-PGR  fallow  land  in
Sorthern and western regions on the other?  What prospects can
the absurdly dispersed agriculture  in  the  southern  regions
possibly have?  How  will peasants in the Bialystok and Lublin
voivodships cope?  The initial  wave  of  competitive  western
produce already  sent  Polish  farmers  into a state of shock.
Today, 70% of Polish farms are on the verge of bankruptcy.

    Agriculture in  Poland  and West Europe: World Apart

                            France  Denmark   Germany   Poland
Employment in agriculture
(% of national labour)      6.7       5.3       3.5       25.8
Farms below 10 ha (%)       29.9      18.0      47.0      53.4
Land-to-tractor ratio
(in hectares per 1 tractor) 12.3      15.8      7.6       12.1
Fertiliser consumption
(kg per 1 ha)               185.5     227.1     181.5     95.1
Average crop yield per 1 ha  63.7     ..        49.0      23.9
(in quintal)
..= data not available
the end
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ECODEFENSE!inform bulletins get more than 150 env.NGOs of EARTH
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Editorial Board  thanks  for  financial  help from "Sowing the
Seeds of Democracy:  A project for Environmental  Grant-Making
in tha NIS" program, which realize by ISAR.
Also, special    thank    to    Sacred   Earth   Network   and
Socio-Ecological Union for diverse help.
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The reprint are welcome (with the reference, if possible).
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Editorial Board: Alexandra Koroleva, Vladimir Sliviak
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