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Warsaw - Some 300 Polish apple growers demonstrated outside the prime minister's office in Warsaw on Tuesday, demanding national and EU funds to offset losses due to the Russian import ban.
In leather jackets with long faces, the growers carried union flags and banners saying, "Take the politicians' salaries and give them to the apple growers".
Poland is the world's top apple exporter, growing three million tonnes of the fruit last year. It normally exports a third, mainly to Russia.
"No country in the world can absorb the million tonnes of Polish apples" that Russia has refused in response to Western sanctions over its actions in Ukraine, said Miroslaw Maliszewski, head of the Polish fruit growers association.
"We need to find other uses for these apples, perhaps by converting them into biogas, with funding from Poland and Europe."
The Russian embargo, announced in August, was in retaliation for US and European sanctions over Moscow's alleged role in the separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine.
Set to last for a year, the ban covers imports of meats, fruits and vegetables, fish and dairy products from Australia, Canada, the European Union, Norway and the United States.
Warsaw initially asked the EU for €147m ($184m) in sanction compensation for its apple growers but revised down the amount sought to €25.8m this week.
One apple producer, Jerzy Pucek from the central village of Goszczyn, told AFP he joined the protest because he was "dissatisfied, like everyone, with the insufficient funds, which only compensate the losses to a small degree".
He currently has 500 tonnes of apples in his cold storage rooms and fears he will end up having to toss them.
