Agriculture as a Dead Letter

The attitude of the former and incumbent government towards agriculture can be seen on the example of the sale of Dukat to Lactalis.

The attitude of the former and current governments towards agriculture can most easily be seen on the example of the sale of Dukat to Lactalis and the stimulation of GMO imports. The case of sale of Dukat to Lactalis shows all the misery, distress, omissions and inconsistency of our politics and opens the process of introducing our agriculture into a vassal relation with global food producers. 

Necessary law on the protection of strategic agricultural production 

The HSP has for six years been drawing the attention of the leadership to the necessity of passing a law on the protection of strategic agricultural production, which will prevent the sale of strategic agricultural producers to foreign companies and protect domestic food producers.

Imagine if world concerns started buying oil factories, agricultural cooperates, for reasons only they know as thus they can destroy domestic agricultural production over night. This example clearly indicates what the political programmes of political parties HDZ, SDP, HSS and HSLS are because they are the most responsible for today’s difficult situation in agriculture.

GM products by the back door 

The second example shows how GM products are introduced in Croatia by the back door under the guise of harmonising our legislature to the acquis commauntaire of the EU with a new bill on food, whose adoption we prevented in parliament.

In the transitional and final provisions of the bill on food, there is a suspension of provisions of the GMO law which was the only obstacle to the uncontrolled spreading of such products. Although the EU recommends to all members to restrict the spreading of GMO as much as possible, Croatia is starting to liberalise the import and use of GMO.

If we allow the import of GMO seeds of cereals, Croatia’s agriculture will be a dead letter.

Pero Kovacevic, HSP