For Love and Freedom on Clean Mother-Earth! _______________________________________________________________ !!!!! !!!!! !!!!! !!! !!!!! !!!!! !!!!! ! ! !!!!! !!!!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !! ! ! ! ! !!! ! ! ! ! ! !!! !!! !!! ! ! ! !!!!! !!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !! ! ! !!!!! !!!!! !!!!! !!!!! !!!!! ! !!!!! ! ! !!!!! !!!!! ! _______________________________________________________________ "ECODEFENSE!inform" environmental inform-bulletin * number 32 * _______________________________________________________________ ..............................................* NOVEMBER 1994 * _______________________________________________________________ "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 closed. People, who are interested, can call information in conference . * 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 _______________________________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________________________ 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 _______________________________________________________________ *************************************************************** ECODEFENSE!inform bulletins get more than 150 env.NGOs of EARTH *************************************************************** 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. *************************************************************** The reprint are welcome (with the reference, if possible). *************************************************************** Editorial Board: Alexandra Koroleva, Vladimir Sliviak *************************************************************** _______________________________________________________________