Dejected Greek farmers waver ahead of polls
HALASTRA – Greek farmers, once the backbone of consecutive election victories for the socialist PASOK party but influential in a win for the conservative New Democracy party in 2004, could hold the key to the outcome of parliamentary polls on Sunday. In 2004, 52 percent of farmers backed the conservatives who ended 11 years of Socialist rule. With only 40 percent opting for PASOK, it was the biggest shift in their voting patterns for decades. This mass of voters could once gain swing the ballot in Sunday’s elections, expected to be very closely fought and seen by analysts as determining the pace of reforms Greece needs to catch up with its eurozone partners. Greece’s 1.2 million farmers, disillusioned by seeing incomes shrink due to EU agricultural reforms, increased competition from third countries and volatile weather, say the conservative government has failed to help them tackle change. «There is a feeling of insecurity among Greek farmers,» Giorgos Goniotakis, president of the Confederation of Agrarian Federations said. «The government has not communicated the new system well and there is no national strategy for farmers.» This nervousness was heightened by weeklong brush fires that devastated huge swathes of the countryside in August, destroying entire villages and killing more than 60 people. Conservative Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis has urged farmers to standardize products to enhance competitiveness and boost revenues and the quality of Greek products abroad. «We want a strategy emphasizing new markets, new competitive products with protected designation of origin,» he told farmers in the country’s agricultural heartland of Thessaly. Blaming both parties The opposition Socialists accuse the government of failing to help farmers adapt, and instead envisage a system assuring high-quality products through a long-term state investment plan, coupled with environmentally friendly practices. The Confederation of Agricultural Cooperatives has blamed both major parties for the problems farmers face today. «The development of the main agricultural products in the past seven years can only be seen as disappointing,» its president, Tzanetos Karamichas, said. In the 1980s, farmers saw their incomes grow with hefty EU subsidies and a revamping of their pension and social security system by the then Socialist government. But EU funds have since been decoupled from production, the EU has grown to 27 members, while increasing competition from within the bloc and third countries have boosted exports to Europe. «What farmers need are measures preparing them for 2013 when the EU subsidies will probably end,» rice farmer Giorgos Kravvas told Reuters in the northern town of Halastra. «At the moment, no one is offering them these alternatives.» Kravvas who cultivates 70 acres of Japonica and Indica rice in this fertile valley near the Axios River Delta is also thinking of switching to other products. «The Agriculture Ministry is in essence non-existant when it comes to assisting farmers,» said Kravvas, who is also a director at the TUV Hellas boiler inspection body.
