Bosnian Farmers Protest Against Flood of Imports

Recent visitors to Sarajevo have been greeted by a curious sight - a small village of tents, huddled beneath the skeletal remains of the pre-war government building and just metres away from the authorities’ current offices.

These are the temporary homes of some 30 striking farmers from all over Bosnia, demanding government action to protect domestic farm produce and curb the tide of cheap imports.

Hajrudin Babajic, a cattle and fruit farmer, has been in the tent village since day one, more than two months ago.

“All sorts of things are being imported,” he complained, “and about 4.7 billion convertible marks’ worth of agricultural produce (about 2.3 billion euro) in the last seven months alone.”

The farmers’ anger has been rising for some time. Over the past two years, the sight of farmers blocking roads, bringing cattle to protest rallies and threatening to burn trucks carrying foreign agricultural products has become common.

Their dissatisfaction dates back to the signing in 2001 of free trade agreements with neighbouring Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro.

It has also has united farmers on both sides of this divided country, bringing together farmers and agricultural workers from both the Federation and Bosnia’s second entity, the Republika Srpska.

They all want more protection for domestic production through the creation of a state ministry for agriculture and through changes in the terms of the free trade agreements.

“We support the demands of the farmers,” said a farmers’ union leader, Mehmed Avdagic. “Our goal now is to unite them and work together to achieve them.”

Poor technology and the failure to develop a national agricultural policy helped to bring Bosnia’s farmers to their current low point.

There is no countrywide coordination, as the 1995 Dayton peace agreement, which ended the 1992-5 war in Bosnia, left agriculture under the jurisdiction of the two entities.

What made it worse was Bosnia’s decision in 2001 to sign the first of several free trade agreements with its neighbours, liberalising the import regime on at least 90 per cent of goods.

The deals helped Bosnia’s struggling commercial exporters but hit farmers hard, as imported foodstuffs are often cheaper than local ones.

With no state ministry of agriculture, their plight has devolved into the hands of the ministry of foreign trade and economic relations.

Assistant minister Nenad Pandurevic said farmers’ complaints were justified. He agreed that many problems stemmed from the free trade deal.

He said Bosnia had signed the agreements with Serbia and Montenegro, SCG, and Croatia, believing local producers would have enough time to adapt if the new regime was phased in gradually.

“The [first] agreement, which took effect on January 1 2002, imposed a zero per cent tariff on Bosnian exports to Croatia while we retained the right to gradually abolish duties on goods from Croatia up to January 1 2004,” he recalled.

“It was similar with SCG. The two countries agreed to this after taking into consideration Bosnia and Hercegovina’s poor position. We thought two or three years would be enough to prepare for when customs on both sides would stand at zero per cent.”

Those hopes proved illusory. By 2005, imports were flooding in, and according to the Federal Statistics Office, some 13 per cent were food and drink products, mostly from Croatia.

“Bosnia and Hercegovina’s agriculture is technologically far behind those two countries,” said Pandurevic. “The other problem is that Croatia and SCG give their agricultural sector bigger subsidies than we do. Croatia earmarks 500 million euro for agriculture, while in Bosnia subsidies do not exceed 50 million convertible marks [25 million euro].”

Hajrudin Bajic, one of the farmers in the tent village, said much of the cheap imported food was of poor quality. He may have a point. Earlier this year, the Federation’s Consumers’ Association warned the public against purchasing frozen chickens from the Netherlands, many of which, it said, had long passed their sell-by date.

“We work our fields for nothing,” lamented Bajic. “This year I had 70 lambs but didn’t sell a single one because the price was so low. If I don’t sell them by the end of the year I’ll have to kill the animals.”

A farmer named Muhamed from Kalesija, outside Tuzla, had a similar story. He owns 1,500 cattle but after 24 years of cattle farming, said he was no longer sure he could survive.

“Until 2003 I managed to make a living but this year and last year I hardly sold anything and what I did sell went at an extremely low price,” he said.

Mehmed Avdagic, of the farmers’ union, blames the authorities for not stimulating production. “At the same time, the food processing and packaging industry is not buying our produce,” he said.

“How do you force the processing industry to buy domestic produce when it is more expensive than imports?”

The government has already reacted by announcing it may limit free trade this year in certain key areas, such as milk and meat.

“We concluded that we should concentrate on the possibility of protecting the production and processing of those products,” said Pandurevic.

Last year saw a bumper rise in milk imports from Croatia, to the tune of 70 per cent.

Curbing such imports by reintroducing tariffs on dairy products is not an easy option, however, on account of the threat of reciprocal action.

“If we abolish free trade for them, they will do the same for us,” said Pandurevic.

Another problem is disunity among the farmers themselves. Although they appear to share the same goal, the various unions are often at odds with one another.

“Many farmers’ associations don’t support each other,” said union leader Mehmed Avdagic. “The Farmers’ Association [of Bosnia and Hercegovina] has been trying for years to bring all the associations closer together, because it is bad to be so disunited and we need an alliance.”

Avdagic blames this on the habit of “everyone sticking to the principle of watching out for their own interests”.

He singles out yet another problem, which is penetration of the local market by producers from European Union countries.

According to Avdagic, nearby Slovenia, now an EU member, is gaining a stake in the local agricultural market by opening up facilities in Bosnia and then importing raw goods from other countries.

In theory, Bosnia could at the same time export more of its produce to the EU, but for the time being, Avdagic says, “exporting is something we can only dream about”.

Apart from threatening to reintroduce tariffs on some food products, the government has drawn up a “Strategy to Combat Poverty” that proposes to remedy some farmers’ complaints by formulating a long-term agricultural policy.

But there is no sign yet of any serious action in that field and in any case, no state institutions exist to put such a policy into practice.

“We need to form new institutions,” said Pandurevic. “By law we have an agency for food safety, for example, but although it was set up it only exists on paper. The same is true of other institutions. Many don’t exist - or operate badly.”

The country cannot afford to ignore the malaise gripping this key sector. Agriculture involves almost one-third of Bosnia’s adult population and progress in agriculture is one of the conditions that Brussels has set for progress on the road to the EU.

The unfavorable results of the free trade agreements with Croatia and Serbia are an indication of the difficulties Bosnia will face on that road.

Brussels looks on the agreements, Pandurevic says, “as an exercise to see how we might fit into the EU market. Judging by the results it won’t be easy”.

In the meantime, Bosnian farmers are powerless to do anything except block roads and protest. On some occasions, they have handed out free food to some of the very poor.

Ranko Bakic, the head of Farmers’ Association, is angry that after two months of protests the authorities continue to ignore them entirely.

“The people elected to protect our interests are indifferent,” he said. “They come to work right past us in luxury cars and enter the building.”

Ordinary people, he added, were far more supportive, “They wave from their cars and honk their horns. Many come to our information booth in the tent village every day to sign our petitions.”

Unlike local politicians, the head of the Delegation of the European Commission in Bosnia, Michael Humphreys and the High Representative, Paddy Ashdown, both visited the tent village.

“I support your struggle,” said Ashdown. “This country has great potential, especially in regard to the production of healthy food, which is in great demand in Europe.”

But the two international officials offered no more than warm words.

Without real change, the farmers are bracing to continue their vigil into winter. Avdo Alagic, 23, is one of the youngest residents of the tent village.

“When I finished school, my parents said the future lay in farming,” he said. “If conditions were right this could be true, but it gets harder every year.

“Ten years since the war, the people in power have done nothing for food producers, or for the young people generally. We work but it pays nothing.”

Nidzara Ahmetasevic is a contributor to Balkan Crisis Report.