People in Poland have begun to eat more apples than ever before thanks to Russian President Putin.
Russia has banned imports of some Polish fruit and vegetables, citing unacceptable levels of pesticide residues and nitrates. Russia is a key importer of Polish produce.
Poland’s transports the majority of its apples to Russia, its largest market.
Protesting Poles have now taken to posting images of apple eating on social media.
It started on Twitter when the journalist Grzegorz Nawacki shared an image of himself eating an apple and used the hashtag #jedzjabłka, which means "eat apples".
"It's the most hurtful thing that could happen to Polish farmers. Over half of apples produced in Poland annually are exported to Russia." says Nawacki. "I thought the best way to help them would be to start eating more apples and drinking more cider. That way some of the apples will get consumed and people will show solidarity with farmers."
People turned to Facebook. A page there called Eat Apples to Annoy Putin is gathering some of the most popular parody pictures and has so far been given the thumbs up nearly 17,000 times.
One of the country's largest supermarket chains, POLOmarket, has been actively endorsing the hashtag on its Facebook and Twitter pages. A special promotion on its website says, "POLOmarket joins the nationwide #jedzjabłka campaign to popularise the consumption of this great national fruit" and it features recipes where apples are a key ingredient.
Food producers in the country claim the ban is a politically-motivated response to EU sanctions against Russia. Poland has condemned Russian actions there.
There are also reports that Russia may extend restrictions on food imports to the rest of the EU.
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