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End of the Beginning
Outnumbered Poles routed an invading Bolshevik army at the gates of Warsaw in mid-August 1920, a victory celebrated as The Miracle of the Vistula. Another remorseless foreign invasion of Poland, that of multinational agribusiness, was decisively defeated in the Polish Sejm on March 4, 2005. Multibillion dollar corporations abetted by international banks and supported by Poland’s corrupt post-Communist government were routed by citizens defending their villages and homes. This battle involved an obscure law called the Fertilizer Act. In 2001, Smithfield Food Inc. lobbyists quietly amended the Act to reclassify liquid animal feces from “sewage”—subject to rules applying to human sewage—to “fertilizer.” American-style effluent spraying was sanctified as “an acceptable means of application” and effluent storage became unregulated. Smithfield and Danish interests in Poland operated with reckless impunity in 2002 and 2003, setting up 24 huge hog factories in northwestern Poland alone. Czechy is typical of afflicted communities. Here, “Prima,” a Smithfield front, brought hogs to a former state farm adjacent to the village and filled lagoons with liquid feces a few hundred feet from the nearest houses. Townspeople are burdened with constant stench, and plagued with clouds of flies in the summer. The water tastes foul; children suffer from respiratory ailments and sore eyes; dysentery, in a community that had hardly heard of the malady, is at third world levels. But while the corporations, confident of government collusion, assailed the countryside, they were weakening politically. Catholic Radio Maryja launched a crusade against the invasion. Local resistance intensified; Members of Parliament (MPs), against a backdrop of plunging support for the government, were besieged with complaints. In January 2004, Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) consultant Marek Kryda attended a church-sponsored meeting to plan a counter attack. A few days later, opposition deputies amended the Fertilizer Act in the Sejm Agriculture Committee. In a brutal, day-long debate in the Sejm Chamber, member after member rose to attack Smithfield and excoriate the Agriculture Ministry. Eventually, the minister accepted amendments requiring liquid manure “must be kept in closed and sealed containers that do not allow any environmental pollution,” and that it must be applied on fields according to “best agricultural practices.” Another amendment prohibited the practice of exporting effluent or dumping it alongside the roads. After accepting the amendments, however, the Agriculture Ministry ignored them. Nothing changed. Almost a year after passage, Marek walked into the Agriculture Committee to hear Deputy Agriculture Minister Josef Pilarczyk tell the members that all that was needed to comply with the Fertilizer Act was a layer of straw scattered on the surface of open lagoons. Chairman Mojzesowicz turned to Marek, who testified that only 30 percent of Smithfield and Polandanor hog factories have applied for the “integrated permits” required by the European Union, and only 15 percent have received them; hence, the majority are operating illegally. Hearing this, the committee passed an amendment mandating solid hard covers over all lagoons. The bill was sent on to the Senate.
In the Senate, industry found an ally in Senator Henry Stoklosa, one of the most powerful and sinister men in Polish politics. Stoklosa is Poland’s largest domestic hog factory owner. With his interests at stake, he threw his legendary influence—built up over 16 years as a Senator—into the fight. The Senate returned a bill to the Sejm specifying Pilarczyk’s formula of compliance via a layer of straw. Word spread that the “fix” was in and the battle over. But Marek and fellow AWI consultant Jurek Dusczynski were far from beaten, and Chairman Mojzesowicz was furious over attempts to intimidate him. Several normally stalwart MPs voted with Stoklosa, but the chairman, iron faced, retained control of the majority of his committee. The Senate bill was rejected; the original language mandating solid covers was restored. At this point, industry elected to take
the bill to the Sejm Chamber before we could mobilize with our slender
resources. However, Marek and Jurek worked around the clock to notify
citizens across Poland, and Radio Maryja issued hourly bulletins. The
effort to override the Agriculture Committee in the Chamber failed
dismally—every major opposition party stood solidly against the
government. The final vote was 232 to 168 in favor of the committee bill.
Full-length articles by Tom Garrett can be found at www.awionline.org/tg/tom.htm.
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