A British aristocrat and farmer will launch a protest over the state of agriculture in Poland this week. On 7^th February, Sir Julian Rose, President of the International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside (ICPPC), accompanied by Goldman Laureate Jadwiga Lopata and Polish citizens living in the UK, will formally deliver a 'letter of support' for Polish farmers who are resisting Polish government plans to sell-off prime Polish farm land to foreign multinational corporations.

The letter will be delivered to the Polish Embassy in London. In it, the campaigners also urge the government to facilitate sale of farm-made produce in local outlets and ban planting and trading of genetically modified crops. Although cultivation of GM crops remains controversial throughout the EU, over one hundred varieties of GM crops are licensed for import into the EU, mostly for use in animal feed.

ICPPC is critical of the Polish government's stance over GM; although the government announced an official ban on planting GM crops in January 2013, as with the rest of Europe, the controversial varieties are still circulating within Polish markets. The interest group suggested on Monday that "trading" of GM seeds in compliance with an European Union directive calling for GM planting to be permitted in 'special designated areas' means "land being sold-off to multinational corporations could be used to grow GM crops on Polish soils."

Farmers across five Polish provinces have staged extensive tractor blockades over the past weeks, in protest against potential exploitation of this loophole. Protesting farmers are still in negotiation with the government; they accuse corporations buying up prime agricultural land of "land-grabbing".

Oxfordshire farmer, Sir Julian has previously led tractor protests in solidarity with protesting farmers in Poland. He said on Monday, "It is a crucial that farmland should remain in the hands of genuine farmers and not sold-off to giant international corporate interests whose sole motives are profit and power. It’s in all our interests to stand in support of actions that resist the planting of transgenic laboratory foods that cannot be prevented from cross contaminating other crops."

The ICPPC is demanding Polish ambassador Witold Sobkow meets with them to discuss their concerns over the "privatisation and exploitation of the Polish countryside [which] is now becoming a national issue."