At 2 pm on Monday, vegetable farmers from the Podravina region in northern Croatia began handing out vegetables to the citizens of Virovitica in protest against unfair competition and the favouring of imported vegetables.

One of the organisers of the protest, agronomist Ivan Pocepan, said that several vegetable farmers were distributing tonnes of vegetables in the main square of Virovitica because they were having difficulties placing their produce on the market as importers were pushing down prices for domestic products.

“I am an agronomist by profession and I would always favour domestic products because they are nutritionally superior,” Pocepan said, warning that the current regulation does not protect local producers.

“Croatia could be self-sufficient in vegetable production, but instead imports low-quality vegetables”

He said there was room to expand production, but farmers were reluctant to do so because there were no guarantees that they would be able to sell their vegetables on the market.

“This makes me sad, because Croatia could be self-sufficient in vegetable production, but instead imports cheap, low-quality vegetables from countries that are not even part of the EU,” Pocepan said, calling on the Ministry of Agriculture to enter into dialogue with farmers and provide them with a decent living.

He said that the protesting farmers did not belong to any organisation but were individuals who could no longer accept the situation in crop production.