PiS returns to the countryside: Poland again with a farmer-friendly minister

Polish Agriculture Minister Grzegorz Puda has been replaced by experienced politician Henryk Kowalczyk, who will also immediately become Deputy Prime Minister. Three other ministers are being replaced or reassigned as well.

This move by the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) aims to address the widespread dissatisfaction and uncertainty among farmers and residents of the Polish countryside.

The now reassigned Puda was unpopular from the start with rural residents and PiS voters due to his ‘urban antics and dandy behavior’ because Polish politics has no adequate solution for the devastating avian flu and swine fever. Puda was also disliked because he long refused to engage in talks with the radicalized farmer supporters of AgroUnia.

Recent research shows that in the past year and a half, a quarter of poultry farms and half of the small pig farms have gone bankrupt.

Puda will now become Minister for Regional Policy and Development Funds, a portfolio previously held by Prime Minister Morawiecki. This means Puda remains one of the trusted allies of government leader Morawiecki and PiS chairman Kaczyński, the Polish ‘strongman’. Kaczyński himself is currently still Deputy Prime Minister but is stepping down early and handing over the role to the new agriculture minister Henryk Kowalczyk.

Kowalczyk is the former Minister of Climate and his task now is to “improve the image of the ministry and its relations with farmers’ organizations,” says Professor Małgorzata Molęda-Zdziech of the Warsaw School of Economics. The new minister brings considerable experience: a year ago he had a major conflict with PiS leaders over a heavily criticized animal welfare law.

Strongman Kaczyński proposed the bill at the end of 2019 to improve the conditions in which animals are kept. The new law would effectively ban cages and the slaughtering of poultry without stunning, which threatened Poland’s substantial chicken exports to Islamic countries.

The bill also imposed stricter hygiene regulations for the tens of thousands of ‘small’ pig farmers. Not only many rural residents and farmers but also many PiS politicians opposed it. Kowalczyk also objected and – like other protesting PiS politicians – was briefly suspended as a PiS parliamentary member.

The PiS revolt initially led to party chairman Kaczyński entering the cabinet himself, after which he removed some popular agricultural politicians and appointed his own allies. Puda was also made agriculture minister this way.

In the end, the Polish Senate blocked the bill due to abstentions by PiS senators. With Puda’s reassignment and the rehabilitation and return of the ‘animal lover’ Kowalczyk, the PiS party is trying to regain some of the lost trust on the Polish countryside.