Populist party Zivi Zid to buy strawberries from farmers

Ivo Cagalj/PIXSELL

After Croatian farmers staged a protest against cheap fruit imports in which they gave away strawberries for free as they are unable to sell them without incurring losses, the populist Zivi Zid party said on Tuesday they would buy strawberries from farmers.

“Zivi Zid will buy a certain amount of strawberries at prices set by farmers, and will donate the strawberries to citizens, households, and schools. We hereby invite all other parties to join us. There are 20 parties currently in Parliament, many of them with millions (of kuna) in revenue, we are probably the party with the lowest income. Nevertheless, we are ready to help,” the party said on Tuesday.

“Even if someone sees this proposal as populism, we believe that in this case no one can have anything against the populist purchase and distribution of strawberries,” the party added.

They added that locally grown produce cannot compete with imports because of what they described as a wrong monetary policy which insists on what they say is the overvaluation of the local currency kuna, and said that since joining the EU in July 2013 more than 23,000 family farms have disappeared in the country.

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