"Polish market is closed for Ukrainian grain. But Belarusian and Russian grain is transported without any problems," Serhii Orlovskyi, owner of Ukrainian grain that Poles spilled from wagons

On the night of February 25, 160 tons of Ukrainian grain was spilled from eight high-sided wagons at the Polish railway station Kotomezh, which was in transit through Poland to the port of Gdansk. From there, it was supposed to go to Germany.

The day before, at the Polish railway station Dorohusk, unknown persons damaged freight wagons and spilled beans.

BusinessCensor spoke with Ukrainian agro-trader Serhii Orlovskyi, whose grain was spilled from the wagons by the Poles. His company, Agrooiltrade, has been supplying grain to processing companies in Poland for more than a decade.

Serhii Orlovskyi spoke about the Poles' attitude to Ukrainian agricultural products, local bureaucrats, and Poland's purchases of grain and oilseeds from Belarus and Russia.

- How long have you been operating in the Polish market and what is your focus?

- Agrooiltrade has been operating in the Polish market for more than ten years. Corn, rapeseed, wheat. Previously, wheat was not exported because there was a quota. We used to export soybeans, corn, and rapeseed.

- So we can say that even before the full-scale war, you historically imported Ukrainian agricultural products through Poland, didn`t you?

- I was driving to Poland. I worked with the largest feed mill provenders and bioethanol plants in Poland. This is my job. I have always been in this market. It has always been difficult, it was small.

- If I understand you rightly, you have been using rail transport all along. Do you also use road transportation?

- Only the railroad, 99% of the time. I hardly ever used road transport because it was much more expensive. Railways were a cheaper option in terms of logistics, when you sign a contract for a thousand or five tons, it's hard to do it with cars. We used railroad wagons.

 - Can we say that as of now, the railroad connection with Poland is working normally, aren`t there restrictions from the protesters?

- It can't be said. The theory is that you can go. But in practice it is different. For two weeks I have two trains that I cannot overload. As of today, they said they would start. But I have not yet clarified the information.

It's 60 cars at Medyka station. The terminals are refusing to reload because the road is blocked by protesters near the terminals, they are afraid of some unknown things and refuse to ship.

We are working on the Helm, where the terminals are guarded, they are far from the roads, and we can reload. If we compare our two roads, some of the difficulties are not of a state nature but are related to protesters and the fear of vandalism.

- There was some information that Polish border guards and law enforcement officers were working in cooperation with the protesters. Mostly it was about road transportation, that they let cars through at the pace set by the protesters, so to speak, under quotas. And even when the protesters themselves violate their quotas for crossing cars, law enforcement officers do not react to this, do not interfere. Can you add anything to this about your railroad transportation?

- I can't comment on it, I can't say that there is any blockade by the border guards. Psychologically, I don't feel much pressure. There are moments, but they have always been there. For example, for the soybeans we were clearing entry customs, where I had a wagon that was broken into the last time, they put it in two places for sampling. But the inspector came to one place and said: "It's too far, I'm not going there". We explained that it would be half a kilometer, maybe three hundred meters, but she refused. We asked the railroad, they reset the wagons, and we cleared entry customs. I think it was a trivial matter. It was a human factor, not a factor dictated by politics.

I do not feel any political pressure as a grain operator in Poland. Yes, it is blocked, it is a big problem, many carriers refuse to work, withdraw their trains because they are afraid of downtime on the Ukrainian side. We are starting to include liability clauses for grain in our contracts because we do not drive the wagons, we do not control them. They want to add liability, they don't want to sign other contracts, they say: "Let's wait." We are working in this format. But there is no political pressure. Even in the case of our last train, which was scattered, there was assistance from them. They did everything, helped us pick it up. Yes, a lot of grain is now with the ground, about three cars. We need to try to clean it up. We are going to do that. The difficulty is that it is in transit and cannot be brought to a Polish elevator to be cleaned. And the port infrastructure has no possibility, only a transshipment grain base. It arrives and is shipped in certain quality conditions. It is not possible for grain improvement in Polish ports. So we take it to Germany, where the producer has partners. He agreed to accept the grain with the land, and we will clean it there. We have done everything with the customs, and now they are forwarding it. We are not in a dead end, not yet. Because the process is not over yet.

- Did they change the security of railway junctions in Poland after this incident with you, when a whole train was scattered?

-In Poland, it is very expensive to hire security guards and the economy cannot afford it. We have taken several measures. We send our people to the places where the wagons stop, and they are present there. One of them has a phone and is in direct contact with the police station. Because when the route is drawn up, we know by 99.9% where the train will be stopped for more than a day. It is unlikely that they will (break into wagons) when the train is moving. We take additional measures and incur additional costs. We have tightened control, taken a number of countermeasures, welded wagons, reinforced seals, and put wheel lock nuts. It is very difficult when grain spills out. It is a psychological and economic blow.

We had three or four trains pass through this week, and there was no vandalism.

- You filed a complaint with the Polish police, they opened a case, are there any first results? Have they found anyone?

- To date, they have not answered anything. But we filed a statement on all the episodes. There is no response yet.

- I heard that you received threats in letters. Someone demanded that you leave the Polish market.

- As of today, this is over.

- Was this happening at the same time as your wagons were cut up, or before or after that?

- It was before that, right after the strike started. During the first three days, we received these letters to the general company mail, to mail info. It wasn't specifically addressed to us, because it said that we would take your goods off the shelves and throw everything away. But grain is not traded on store shelves. It goes for processing.

- Can it be assumed that other companies have received similar letters?

- Yes.

- Do you know anything about this?

- I think everyone received it. But we didn't communicate like that. For example, we had new people who wanted to work with us. For some reason, Polish farmers think that (Ukrainian) grain is returning to the Polish market. Because a company came to us and said that we had found you on the Internet and wanted to work with you. Then they asked about shipping Ukrainian grain, and it became clear that this was a provocation. We are laughing: "Guys, how? Legally, this is impossible, because the customs authorities control everything in transit." We laughed, realized the reason for coming, shook hands, and said: "Ask directly, you will get an answer." And we made it right, but there were indeed such conversations that we wanted to buy grain, we are small processors. We said that only soybeans can come from the crops we are engaged in. Then there was a question: "What if we start picking it up from the port with our trucks?" And everything became clear.

- Have you already calculated your losses from grain spoilage at the border?

- It will be done next week. We need to take into account two factors: the wagons arrived with a shortage, and several wagons had poor quality because they were loaded at night and the grain had impurities. We spilled it to the side, it was a small amount. We picked the grain from the ground, and it was lumpy. It is going to Germany, where our partner will clean it. There will definitely be losses because this grain will be cheap. He will collect it, clean it, and issue invoices. We'll see how he treats this, as long as he is understanding and willing to help. We have been working with him for a long time, and this grain will be used for bioethanol. So they will accept it. This week it will arrive, and next week we will know the losses.

- Do you work with an insurance company, will it cover this story?

- We are waiting. Our initial requests are to the carrier. We do not insure ourselves. The carrier insures the cargo. In our requests for compensation, we said that insurance companies treat strikes as force majeure, the forces are greater, but I have no information on that today. I have rejected grain with additional impurities, but it is not critical. I need to open a transit declaration and move it from one warehouse to another. I have three trucks of grain with soil and grass. It went to Germany. My losses will be clear next week.

- Did these stories have any negative impact on your business? We have seen footage of Polish politicians demonstratively sniffing Ukrainian grain and sugar, and there is a narrative that it is of poor quality, it is bad. I don't know where this information comes from. Perhaps some of your contractors have started to refuse to work with you?

- I don't feel it today. The narrative carried by the protesters, which outrages me the most, is that Ukrainian grain does not meet the quality. We have supplied a lot of rapeseed to German plants. And the Germans firmly say that Ukrainian rapeseed is the best compared to Romanian and Polish rapeseed. This year we have a super oil content of 46-48%. If all contracts indicate oil content of 43% or more, ours is a few percent higher. The economic feasibility is increasing. Speaking of corn, yes, Ukrainian grain is cheaper to buy, but people are happy to buy it. There is a discount, Polish grain is more expensive. Whenever I ask Poles about the difference in corn prices, I always hear: "That's the way the market is."

- They also say that Russian grain enters the Polish market without any problems. Do you feel its presence?

- You don't feel any competition, because no one really wants to talk about it. We don't feel it when we work with ships on FOB or when we work with the Germans. The Polish market is closed for Ukrainian grain. It is a big problem that Ukrainian grain is closed. I can go out tomorrow as a counterparty to buy Belarusian and Russian grain and import it without any problems. Europe works with Russian and Belarusian grain. This is a fact.

- So they don't fight with it, they only fight with Ukrainian grain?

- As of today, they are already fighting. For example, the roads to Lithuania are blocked. As I was told, there is a strike on the Belarusian border. The process is underway. And Polish Prime Minister Tusk is now appealing to Brussels to impose new sanctions on Russian grain. As far as I remember, it was one of the agreements that food products (from Russia) are not sanctioned.

 - You are currently in Poland, how does Polish society in general react to what is happening on the border with Ukraine? Because in Ukraine, on the day of the attack on your grain wagons, it was on the front pages, and people were very emotional about it, reacting. And when I tried to read something in the Polish media, it seemed that it was not the main topic there, it was not discussed.

- In Poland, there is more coverage of the problems of Polish farmers. Their main protest is the Green Deal, the reduction of pesticide use. Secondly, they say that Poles are in danger now because Ukrainian holdings are importing grain, and it is much easier and better for them to work, and Poles cannot withstand competition. That the agricultural sector is a source of security. This is covered the most. Polish media do not say that Ukrainian grain is of poor quality. It's tik-tok, telegram, YouTube. That we need to protect what we have, that Poland will lose its independence. There is a lot of this on social media. I'm appealing to you, to journalists, that we need to build some kind of information PR program to overcome this. We will not be allowed here. It's 100% certain. With such strikes. Transit will be allowed, it will go. But we need to respond to such things by convincing the world that Ukrainian grain is bought all over the world, and we export 60 to 80 million tons of agricultural products. It is, if not the best, then one of the best in the world in terms of quality.  We may not grow durum wheat with high protein, but the food-grade wheat or fodder is of really high quality. Yes, we have differences in standardization, in the use of pesticides, and so on, but this does not mean that all farmers spray with pesticides that are not allowed in Europe. We are being tested. In my history, there have been very few cases when our grain did not meet European standards. Almost single cases. Yes, there are some, but they are isolated, microscopic cases. In this aspect, if there was a big information program because this is also a war... There is a historic chance to prove to Europe that Ukrainian grain is really good, we need to think about how to interrupt this narrative.

- I think we need to appeal even more to the state's information policy. There seems to be a whole ministry there that should be dealing with this...

Have you somehow identified the core of the protesters who are spreading these stories about poor-quality grain? Are they really farmers or some political force?

- There is definitely a political force behind every political slogan that has to drive it. I am personally convinced that there is a core. All Polish farmers could not find their way around and carry this narrative. Some third forces are interested in misunderstanding, quarreling, and creating a conflict between Poland and Ukraine. I don't know, maybe it's the specifics of people and mentality, but it's more acute here than in Romania, for example, or Slovakia. Even Hungary with Orban is not as acute. Schools will have a day off on Friday because there will be another strike. They will block the whole of Warsaw. They are getting their way. The main thing for them is the Green Deal, it is very important, and I understand why. Loss of yields, it will be hard to work. Today, the culture and technology of agricultural production do not allow to achieve great results without the use of plant protection products, pesticides against pests, and they understand this. And they are achieving this at the expense of Ukraine because Ukraine is the most sensitive topic and it is easier to press this most sensitive topic to get attention.