Those damned Polish apples!
"If you want to hurt Putin, eat apples and drink apple wine!", a Polish economics magazine urged its readership about a year ago. That was sort of Poland's response to the Russian counter-embargo on the EU food products (which in turn was a response to the sanctions).
The call became "viral" across Poland in a heartbeat. Just within days, a hashtag called #jedzjablka (eat apples) became #1 there. If you were goin to say right now that hashtags don't do a thing, prepare to get yourself surprised. Because after thousands of Poles spent weeks sharing pictures of people eating apples and drinking apple wine in solidarity to the Polish farmers, things began to change. A facetious post entitled "An apple a day keeps Putin away" became immensely popular among the Polo-sphere. And that was just one among many symbolic gestures that grew into something real.
This campaign has worked miracles. The Russian food embargo on the EU has become a central one around the Polish media ever since. Mostly because the Poles are very concerned about what's happening with their cousins in Ukraine, and worried that it may happen to them as well at some point.
These concerns became even more serious after the annexation of Crimea. Furthermore, the Russian food embargo against the EU has mainly affected the Polish fruit and vegetable producers. Nearly 70% of the Polish fruit exports had been for the Russian market. Last year Poland produced 3.2 trillion tons of apples, half of that going out for exportation.
Indeed, the fruit producers were the most affected, and they were initially forced to drop their prices a lot. But the situation has improved this year, largely because of this sort of response: their revenue has increased almost by 50% compared to last year. Belarus and Serbia have become the largest consumers of Polish apples. And the biggest customer of Belarus and Serbia is again... Russia. So the Polish producers have practically managed to bypass the Russian embargo through the back-door. Instead of fruits, they've started selling Russia derivative apple products via third countries. Thus, the sales of apple concentrate from Poland to Russia have increased from 100 tons to 10,000 tons within just two years. A number of US companies are also buying apple concentrate from Poland. So the price of the Polish apples for industrial use has doubled and tripled within just a few months.
Looks like the dire times have passed for Poland now. If Russia continues to buy apples from Belarus, Ukraine, Serbia and Macedonia, these countries would be able to export their own produce, and will then have to import from Poland to meet their own domestic needs.
The Polish agricultural market is currently thriving. That's been an unexpected effect of the Russia-EU economic standoff. The apple sales in Poland itself have increased from 16 to 18 kg per capita. It's hard to say if that's a direct consequence of the Russian embargo, or the media campaign in defense of the Polish producers, or the low prices in general. But it's a fact that the international media have spread the word about the campaign, and various Polish politicians and celebrities have gotten involved, many of them posing while eating apples in public places. Famous international dignitaries have also joined the campaign, like the dancers from the Cirque du Soleil. Another side effect of the Russian embargo has been the new popularity of apple wine, which can now be found in every little street shop or pub.
So, despite the embargo, or maybe exactly because of it, the Polish food producers have been able to cope rather well with the situation. In a sense, the measure has backfired very badly on Russia. What's more, this year is shaping up to become a record year in many respects for Poland. They've sold food products worth 9.3 billion euros so far this year. That amount is expected to swell up to 25 billion by the end of the year, if the Minister of Agriculture is to be believed. Now Poland is exporting food products for 70+ countries. Evidently, the record figures are a byproduct of the Russian embargo, because it has allowed the Polish producers to step into new markets in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
In the meantime, the situation in Russia itself remains unchanged. The Russian authorities have extended the embargo for another half a year - that concerns fruits, meat, dairy products, fish, sea food and walnuts. In addition, Russia has banned the imports of flowers from Poland, the Netherlands, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Italy and Germany. These products are now being considered "dangerous for the Russian economy, since they are infested with microorganisms". Which is of course bullshit. And who's ultimately paying the bill for all this stupidity? You guessed right: the regular Russian consumer. Because the prices of flowers are following the same pattern as they did about the banned foods: they're currently skyrocketing all across Russia. So yeah. To use the typical Soviet sort of rhetoric, every Polish apple you eat constitutes yet another stink-bomb in Putin's backyard.