SPRING SOWING

A Conversation with Djordje Garabandic, President of the Independent Trade Union of Farmers of Serbia

• A farmer must be aware of three things: his position, its significance and force in a society. A farmer can protect himself only on his own, and he can do it only in association with the others, and therefore, our Trade Union constantly grows. We have several hundred thousand members and more than 400 clubs. The life of a peasant deteriorates every year, he is not a constitutional category, has no guranteed, minimum price of labour as the others, and I claim that even a farmer who has 20 hectars, with the existing policy, lives worse and has a smaller income than the welfare cases the society takes care of. From case to case, he earns some money on some of the products, but his investments and expenses are disproportionately large. Generally speaking, he is absolutely at a loss.

We have a difficult spring ahead of us and, if the policy concerning agriculture remains the same, a serious revolt may occur, Djordje Garabandic, President of the Independent Trade Union of Farmers of Serbia says. We are having a conversation just before the spring sowing in which the Government of Serbia planned to sow about 2,459 million hectars of land, and assessed that a credit of 250 million dinars would be needed. A shortage of fertilizers, and especially the shortage of fuel seriously aggravates the situation, and a huge debt of the Government to the peasants who hold about 80 per cent of the land makes it almost red-hot.

• We have just got the information that some oil refineries demand 3.60 dinars for a litre of fuel from the peasants although the reduced price promised to the peasants is 1.28 dinars per litre. It is almost three times more expensive, and it can be bought at the petrol stations for 3.50 dinars. They are not doing anything for us, they are taking away our products for bagatelle. And the peasant is in a situation similar to the one in the saying: "locusts on one side, tax-collectors on the other"... That is why many will leave the land unploughed, and the Trade Union is preparing forms for cancellation of registration, in other words, we do not wish to cultivate the land any more, because we cannot do it under the circumstances. So far, we have spent even all the money we had saved, all that we kept hidden at home, and nothing to say about the money in the banks and the savings. We have neither the money nor the will to go on. I own more than a hundred acres of first-class soil and most probably I will wait for the wheat to grow up to the height of 20 cm and then I will replough it and fertlize the land in this way, and leave only as much as the family needs, an acre at the most. When I produce only for myself, I believe that it is not my duty to pay taxes, and I will give the land to someone else. Let the state determine who will be the guardian and let him pay taxes.

* The peasant was not a favourite of the previous state either. Let us remember compulsory purchase, confiscations...

• We are now in a worse situation than during the first post-war years when peasants were obliged to give their products for compulsory purchase. It is estimated that there were about 12 thousand victims in that period. We still have compulsory purchase, but in a much more perfidious manner. All good landlords are jeopardized nowadays. We take our wheat ourselves now in order to turn it in at a price which does not provide even the return of what we had invested, not taking into account the land rent which amounts to ten per cent of the value of the real estate according to Marx's formula. Our gross income per acre does not even cover the land rent, and nothing to say about fuel and other needs in order to have the land cultivated. The income per acre (with an average crop of 17 mc) does not even cover the costs of fuel.

* And not to say anything about depreciation and the cost of labour, they are obviously free. How did the peasants fare last year. Mr Garabandic?

• In Vojvodina, the difference between the price which was paid and the production price of wheat is about 400 million dinars. That is how much the state robbed us of. Just with wheat, not counting corn and the oil crops which were paid for below the guaranteed price (instead of the promised 40, we got 30 paras), so that it turned out that sunflower pellet is more expensive than raw sunflower used for oil manufacturing. Thanks to the achievements of our experts, we have the best sunflower in the world (oil share over 40 per cent, meaning that a kilogram of oil is obtained from 2 and a half kilos of sunflower). The state pays for our labour out of the remaining pressed oilseed pellet. Let us not mention the sugar beet with which they make even more money. Sugar refineries process about 20 per cent more sugar beet than they have purchased, and these are some examples which show how the peasant is being cheated and humiliated. And nohing to say about the other processing industries, about milling industry, for instance, which charges 50 per cent as miller's toll.. Before the war, mills used to charge 8 to 12 per cent (75 kilograms of bread flour per a hundred kilograms of wheat). While we ate bread made of '93 crop, it cost us 40 kilograms of wheat per kilogram of bread - such a ratio does not exist anywhere in the world. That is why we demand primarily a branch parity according to which the price of a kilogram of bread shall not exceed the cost of 2 kilograms of wheat, nor should meat products be more expensive than two kilograms of liveweight.

* Does that mean that it is not the fault of the farmer that we are eating such expensive food?

• The price of food in the market cannot be taken into account. There are less than ten per cent of peasants behind the stalls in market places. Mostly they are middlemen, dealers, profiteers. Our Trade Ubnion demanded that large cities, Novi Sad, for instance, get the possibility of discount sale of agricultural products, but the state is not willing to give up its income from market stalls and taxes.

* The peasant reacted to all this by refusing to pay taxes. Is more that 50 per cent of unpaid taxes solely the result of revolt?

• It is not only the result of revolt. It is the result of true poverty of the peasant. He is worn out. During two previous years he lived off past labour, off his savings. The results will be long lasting. It is not profitable for us to buy the expensive fertilizers any more (five kilograms of wheat for a kilogram of fertilizers) and the farmers have decided to reduce land cultivation. Small rodents and creapers have increased in number, the compulsory crop rotation is not respected, people sow wheat year after year, and it all leads to a catastrophe, solvency is being destroyed, and soon we will have a desert in Vojvodina instead of arable land.

* We are witnesses to a new phenomenon in Vojvodina, the appearance of a new category of land owners. They buy land at a very low price, but they are actually not farmers (former politicians, directors etc.)?

• The land will soon become even cheaper than until now and it is passing into the hands of masters, I also call them landlords, who will in the future be employers for the pauperized peasants.

* Perhaps, the most picturesque indicator of the position the peasants have in our country is a public-opinion poll on popularity of different occupations. According to this poll, the farmer holds an unenviable low position.

In Serbia, farmers form 60 per cent of the population. All workers can be a party of a collective contract. This is not possible for the farmer. No matter whether they work or are on a forced leave, the workers are entitled to free medical treatment, vacation, they have a pension - farmers have nothing of the kind. Therefore, it is no wonder that the farmers rated 37 in the list of occupations of this weekly which carried out the poll, even below street sweepers.

* What about credits and extending credits to farmers?

• A delegation of this Trade Union spent two days in Belgrade, we had a series of meetings with the competent authorities, among others, the deputies of the Socialist Party of Serbia. It is an important occasion for us, for it was for the first time that we talked with them, and therefore, for the first time we were on official television. We had specific talks on specific issues, and we presented out demands in 12 items. Primarily, we asked for a longterm policy in agriculture, restructuring of the tax system, price parity, revilatization of village, but with the peasants themselves carrying it out, because we believe that they are the most competent to do it, asking only for certain funds from the state. I think that noone is acquainted with the distress of the village and its needs better than the peasants themselves. This would be a way to revive the destroyed spirit of the village. But, to bring back its youth as well, because the age limit of sixty has already been crossed. You will much more frequently see an old man driving a tractor than someone who is young.

* The Government says that about 250 million dinars are prepared for sowing. Who will get this money?

_ Sunflower has still not been paid for, payment has not even started in many farm cooperatives. By interrupting payments for sugar beet and oilcrops, the state has tried to collect taxes, and I believe that it will be their last wrong move in Serbia. The vine-growers were not paid for their grapes, only raspberries have been paid for. And these 250 million dinars will mostly be given to the social sector, which forms 20 per cent of agriculture and which is far more dilapidated than the private sector. This money is insufficient even for paying salaries of the workers in the social sector though. In order to begin sowing of spring crops, more than 800 million dinars of credits would be needed, and then everyone would get something. Even if credits will be granted, I tend to believe, Djordje Garabandic says, that they will go into processing industries in order to stifle social unrest, like the one in the Agricultural Complex in Becej which has five thousand acres of unploughed land.

Smilja Arsenov