The Croatian Chamber of Agriculture (HPK) said on Wednesday there were many alarming problems in the sector, underlining the need to amend the law on farmland, which is why it requested an urgent meeting with the government.

“We are in a very delicate period with agriculture. We still don’t have sufficient production and expect different policies of allocating EU funds for the coming period, whereby we could improve productivity and make farms survive, not die out,” HPK president Mladen Jakopovic told the press.

He and HPK management board member Antun Vrakic said that in 18 months of application, the farmland law proved not to be good.

Most farmers have 30-year lease agreements which are about to run out and don’t know what to do, they said, adding that the law must be amended and its application and tenders suspended until then.

The law is unconstitutional and discriminatory, and it’s unacceptable that one local government unit should have a maximum 12 hectares and another 1,000 or 2,000, Vrakic said, adding that strategic goals cannot be achieved, that many stable farms are folding, and that instructions on further land leasing are unclear.

He said the current law was the 18th in 30 years and the worst to date because it “destroys producers… who invested for decades, only to be left without land now.” Of 860,000 hectares of arable land, he said, 660,000 is tended by family farmers, while the rest is owned by foreigners with concessions up to 50 years.

The import of Ukrainian wheat at lower prices has “halved” the Croatian market, which can’t compete with the price of 25-30 cents for 1 kg of flour, Jakopovic and Vrakic said.

There are fewer problems with sunflower because there is no shortage, although its price dropped 40%, but less barley and wheat have been produced, they said, adding that the price of meat, notably pork, should not go up because most of it will be imported.

As for problems in pig breeding due to African swine fewer, HPK management board member Mato Brlosic said the damage was enormous and that many breeders were “on their knees”, having lost everything due to pig euthanisation and a one-year work ban.