Against the background of a partial blockade of farmers on the Polish-Lithuanian border due to Ukrainian grain, farmers of Lithuania say that they are confused by the import of Russian grain, not Ukrainian.
This is stated in the LRT publication.
Since March 1, Polish farmers have started partially blocking the main road at the former border crossing point between Poland and Lithuania. They are checking the trucks due to fear that part of the Ukrainian grain imported to Lithuania is returning to Poland.
Instead, Lithuanian farmers say that their biggest problem is not Ukrainian, but Russian grain, which reaches the EU in huge quantities.
"These are impressive figures, with over 3 million tonnes of Russian grain having passed through Latvia and Lithuania combined in 2023. In total, 12 million tonnes of Russian grain were imported into the EU market last year," said the head of the Association of Lithuanian Grain Producers Aušrys Macijauskas.
According to him, Russian grain lowers prices throughout the EU: the Russians are deliberately dumping to create chaos in the agricultural sector. But the European Commission has the tools to put an end to this.
"There is a regulation that allows the EU to intervene in the market in an emergency situation and start buying food products the prices of which are falling drastically," Macijauskas noted.
According to the estimates of grain processors, about 50 000 tons of Ukrainian grain were imported to Lithuania last year, which is much less than in the pre-war period.
Latviaʼs parliament has even banned imports of agricultural products from Russia and Belarus until at least July 2025, but even this move has so far not yielded the expected results, processors say.