Painful entry for Poland into the EU
"I am not sure we can survive the European Union(eu),' says Andrzej Konkol, an organic farmer in Kashubia, Northern Poland. His daughter translates while her young twin brothers amble about the yard in the afternoon sun. Grinning broadly, they half lead, half follow the gangling calf they'd watched being born a week earlier. Andrzej continues, "When I went to Denmark, I saw only big farms there. And I learnt that small farms like ours had all gone bankrupt.'
On their 40 hectares of rolling farmland, Andrzej and his wife Teresa grow organic vegetables, cereal and fruit, and keep pigs, fowl, cows, bees, dogs and cats. Birds dart from wooden barn doors to feast on insects swarming over ponds, meadows and woodland where black cranes nest and wild boar roam. Around the farm, children run and play, and their grandmother feeds chickens. Teresa does the milking, her mother-in-law makes butter in the kitchen, Andrzej cuts wildflower hay and tends pumpkin plants sprouting in composting pig shit. Nearby, Teresa's father ploughs his steep land with horses. The family heats their house with wood, and pickle vegetables for the winter. They own two cars, a tractor and a television and have an eco-tourist campsite beside their garage. They also receive agricultural subsidies.
Poland's 40 million inhabitants abide between East and West, tradition and modernity, communism and capitalism, and now politically, Europe and the us. Three million people of Polish descent live in the us, and their influence played a big part in the Polish government's decision of supporting the us with troops in Iraq