While the eyes of the public and inspectors are focused on meat shelves, I will address bread, milk, and vegetables. Behind the statistics of this year’s agricultural product prices lies the real drama that Croatian farmers are experiencing. Although, on average, this year’s prices are almost at last year’s level (they have fallen by 0.7 percent), some producers have certainly suffered. Prices of grains, milk, and vegetables have dropped by about ten percent! However, the deflationary spiral was interrupted somewhere between Croatian fields and stores. Grains have become cheaper this year by 10.1 percent, but in stores, like bread, they increased by 0.5 percent year-on-year in October. Producers sell milk for 10.5 percent less than last year, while milk, cheese, and eggs in October have only decreased by two percent. The same goes for vegetables, which are harvested this year from gardens for nine percent less than last year, while in stores, vegetable prices have only fallen by 2.3 percent.
The root of this price imbalance lies in – cheap imports and soft borders. But today, after entering the EU, efforts to enter the Schengen regime, and in light of the refugee crisis, there are no more soft borders. In other words, it has moved from the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina further north and west – to the border with Hungary, Slovenia, and Italy. Today, all kinds of garbage come to us from other EU member states. Not only in agriculture, which Western European countries protect and promote much more skillfully. A major action has just begun to examine the (in)consistency of the composition and quality of 27 products in Croatia and Germany. Old Europe pretends not to know anything about the problems of inferior detergent that is shipped to transitional countries. Thus, it pretends not to know anything about its waste that it pushes onto poorer countries in various ways. And it is not to blame. We are to blame ourselves because we do not know how to stop the import of garbage that destroys both health and domestic agriculture. The sharp statements of Minister of Agriculture Tolušić are, however, a kind of, albeit small, encouragement.
