Recent times have brought to light the serious mistakes of an agricultural policy subject to the impositions of the European Union, with the application of the Common Agricultural Policy, and to the interests of large national agribusiness and the main producing countries in the Centre and North of the EU.

An agricultural policy applied, in turn, by PS, PSD and CDS, which brought us to a situation of dependence that today takes on dramatic contours.

A policy in which planning was absent, without ensuring public intervention to guarantee the production of essential foodstuffs for the national population.

A policy of contempt for small and medium-sized agriculture, clearly proving to be more resilient to crises and difficulties.

A policy based on the promotion of intensive and super-intensive agriculture, more dependent on the massive use of water, fertilizers and phytopharmaceuticals.

A policy that destroyed the national productive capacity, not only in agriculture but also in terms of fertilizers.

A policy that, at one point, paid the Portuguese farmers to stop producing, then paid for them not to produce and continues to provide support without the obligation to produce food.

A policy that despised food sovereignty, betting everything on production for export and on the misleading theory of the food balance in terms of value.

A policy that does not face, on the contrary, coexists with the concentration of large retail distribution, which established an authentic oligopoly, directed by the four main distribution chains, which imposes low prices on production, which are sometimes even below the cost of production, while using agricultural products, in particular milk, as a magnet to attract customers to all other products.

The PCP never tired of saying it, including through the voice of its General Secretary. The PCP rejected the entry of the Common Agricultural Policy in Portugal, warned of its dangers and successively rejected the CAP reforms, in which PS, PSD and CDS were always together, considering that they did not respond to the interests of Portuguese farmers, the people and the country.

The PCP drew attention to the vulnerability of the Portuguese situation, in the face of successive warnings, from the eruption of a volcano in Iceland that paralyzed the skies of Europe for weeks, to the land blocks connecting the Peninsula to the European continent, including the incident with a mega-ship that paralysed merchant shipping in the Suez Canal.

The Covid-19 pandemic, the drought, the war in Eastern Europe and the sanctions against Russia are being used as an excuse for brutal price increases and even for problems in the food supply, but they have found a weak situation in Portuguese agriculture that could jeopardise this very supply.

The deficit in the agri-food balance in terms of cereals, beef and potatoes jeopardises not only the country's food sovereignty, but even national security itself.

Portugal relies on foreign supply for 75% of cereals for human and animal food, while in the case of corn the dependence is 70% and for wheat it is 95%. Portugal's exposure to corn imports from Ukraine and the global demand that will turn to markets from where our country gets its supply are extremely serious.

Portugal continues to be self-sufficient in raw milk, but with each passing day, new farms face bankruptcy and production becomes brutally concentrated. The sanctions on Russia with the closure of that market to EU exports, will affect national farms even more.

Livestock breeders, particularly pigs, cannot afford the increases in feed costs and are already facing supply difficulties. The closure of Portuguese and EU export channels to Russia will bring new difficulties.

The wine trade has rapidly lost an important market that, as it is known, was consuming around 2500 bottles of Portuguese wine per hour. Added to this is the policy of liberalisation of vine planting rights, with the gradual increase in supply at the EU level.

Empty statements of concern about the situation or national projects and plans have not only not eased the difficulties but have allowed them to worsen.

The PCP once again draws attention to the risk to national security due to brutal dependence on cereals, which is the basis of human and animal food and whose world trade is in the hands of four multinationals.

The PCP has already tabled proposals, whether in the sense of expanding the production of cereals in our country, or to enhance the procurement measures.

In recent months, however, farmers have been faced with huge increases in production costs.

Seeds, energy, fuels, fertilizers, pesticides, agricultural tools and machinery have experienced price increases in recent months. War has nothing to do with this speculative drive and is now being used as a pretext for further inflationary leaps.

Fertilizers, whose raw materials are mainly produced by Russia, increased their price, in some cases, by more than 300%, long before the war started. Agricultural machinery had already been produced.
It is immoral that those who, during the epidemic, saw their profits grow at the expense of the suffering of thousands of Portuguese, now use the pretext of war to indulge their insatiable greed.

The drought that has been felt during this winter, despite the rains that have fallen in recent days, has jeopardised the autumn/winter crops, and spring/summer productions may also be conditioned. The carelessness with which the Minister of the Environment declared that the country would have water for two years, referring only to human consumption, that is, not having the water necessary for animal feed or food production, at a time when there are already water resource managers advising farmers not to sow, make the situation even more worrying.

The current situation proves the need for a different policy. A policy that embraces the rupture with the path that brought us here. A patriotic and left-wing policy that assumes the defence of national production, and particularly of agricultural production, to guarantee food sovereignty as a national priority.
Criticizing the government's delay in taking measures and the modesty of what is announced, namely the anticipation of aid, which will be lacking later on, or new credit lines for already heavily indebted sectors, or even the European Union's announcement of mobilisation of the Crisis Reserve, which for Portugal will mean a support of just over 9 million euros, when, just a month ago, the Commissioner for Agriculture announced that it was insufficient to deal with the problems of pig farming alone, the PCP reaffirms that, right now, what is needed is direct aid to producers.

In the medium term, what is needed is aid to stabilise energy prices, namely in terms of the implementation of permanent support for green electricity, adopted by the Assembly of the Republic through the initiative of the PCP and which should already have been made available on January 1st. There is also a policy of funding small hydro-agricultural works, namely the construction of ponds to retain water, wherever possible. It is still necessary to review the CAP and CAP Strategic Plan options, ensuring adequate support for small and medium-sized agriculture and family farming, cancelling the decision to lower support under the Small Farmers Scheme for smaller producers.

At the structural level, it is necessary, on the one hand, to adopt legislation that clarifies the uses of water in the event of a drought risk, which the PCP had already tabled in the Assembly of the Republic but which was rejected by PS, PSD and CDS, which would have averted the fact that, in a year like this, the dam concessionaire companies sought to intensify energy production, leaving a part of the dams almost without water.

But it is mainly necessary to question our country's production model. Current circumstances show the need to change the logic of production based on profit to production based on the need to guarantee food for our people, investing in productions adapted to the meteorological conditions and territories.

In this context, the PCP defends:

1. A policy that assures small and medium-sized producers the guarantee of fair and rewarding prices. If farmers are assured the flow of their production, they will sow the seeds to the ground.

This implies that the State assumes structures for the collection and supply of agricultural products, warehouses, silos, cold storage, reactivating those that were already active and assuming the necessary partnerships with the private and cooperative sector for this purpose.

2. The approval of legislation that forbids the sale of production below cost price, with the creation of automatic schemes for its definition.

3. Ensuring a policy to contain energy and fuel costs, regulating prices, reducing VAT on electricity, ending double taxation, implementing support for green electricity, in a simplified and permanent way, and increasing support for agricultural diesel, so as to restore the price of diesel paid by farmers in January 2021.

4. The guarantee of price control of fertilizers and pesticides, namely through the purchase by the State, for distribution to small and medium-sized agriculture, in articulation with their representative organisations.

5. Strengthening the structures of the Ministry of Agriculture to ensure agricultural policy planning and technical advice to farmers with true rural extension services.

6. The immediate identification of land with conditions to produce cereals and the promotion of these productions using direct incentives, even in this campaign.

7. The review of the CAPSP, with a view to guaranteeing the link between aid and production.