“There is no reason for a sugar shortage. The panic has been artificially created. The commercial chains have gained well. The current price of sugar is speculative rather than real but it is all slowly returning to normality” said Henryk Kowalczyk, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Agriculture.

Minister Kowalczyk also assured that Poland has adequate reserves of sugar. There will also be no shortage of flour, as, he said, “there was no major drought this year, they were rather spotty phenomena, and yields are very good”.

He admitted that there are three drought outbreaks in Poland: mainly it is the borderland of southern Wielkopolska, Lower Silesia, West Pomerania, Kuyavia-Pomerania, “but they are not as extensive as in 2018 or 2019”.

“We are food secure. This is evidenced by the fact that we produce more food than we consume. We export almost €40 billion worth of food. The surplus is therefore very large. We have food for both Poles and newcomers from Ukraine”, said the minister.

Referring to problems with the purchase of grain from Polish farmers, Deputy Prime Minister Kowalczyk said that farmers even in Podkarpacie, Lubelskie, i.e. close to the border with Ukraine, have the possibility to sell grain without any problems.

“It is absolutely untrue to say that Ukrainian grain has flooded storehouses. We can see this now”, said the Agriculture Minister, adding that farmers can sell their grain to Elewarr, for example. “The sale of grain by farmers is going very smoothly and without any disruption”, he stressed.

When asked whether bread would cost 10 PLN, Deputy Prime Minister Kowalczyk said that “this is again spreading panic,” as bread had already become more expensive and this was mainly due to energy prices, although, as he admitted, the price of grain and flour also had some influence.

Adrian Andrzejewski