For several years, the prices of broad beans have been breaking records. In 2020, it cost in wholesale 40 zlotys per kilogram. In shops and in bazaars, prices reached PLN 50.
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Two plagues that coincided at the same time are to blame, namely the drought and the lack of labor, caused by the freezing of the economy due to the coronavirus epidemic.
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See also: Why are fuel prices so expensive? Contributor to NBP and high taxes
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However, as a broad bean grower tells the portal sadyogrody.pl, farmers are satisfied with it. Because they are only now starting to earn.
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– I do not wish anyone, but I only make money on a drought, because then there are not many beans and the prices are decent. Why bring me 5 tons of broad beans, if I have more for 1.5 tons, without this job? In vegetable farming, you can only affect drought – the grower tells the portal.
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He has been growing broad beans for years and, as he claims, today it is on the verge of profitability. All because the costs are constantly rising, and the purchase prices actually are not. Unless there’s a drought.
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– Let’s go back to 1997 – a kilogram of seeds cost 5 zlotys, fuel 1.80, I paid employees 3.50 per hour; I sold the first broad beans for PLN 14. Today, seeds cost PLN 25, fuel PLN 6, and broad beans PLN 4. I started with 3.70 ha, and from this I built a house, a hall, I bought machines, I raised my children; today I have to have 20 ha to survive, because today, to achieve the same income per hectare, you have to expand the acreage eight times – he explains in an interview with the portal sadyogrody.pl.
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As the farmer explains, a huge problem for growers is finding people to work on the harvest.
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– Today no one from the village will come to work, even if he needs food. That is why I have been employing Ukrainians for many years, despite the fact that there are post-Peggerian blocks in the area and people from these blocks do not work. But I do not take people from intermediaries, they always come the same, with families, even during a pandemic – he tells the portal sadyogrody.pl.
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