postgres_fdw slower then copy + scp + copy (~12 times)

- foreign server 9.2 - local server 9.5 - table is 10GB - data transfer performed on same network interface as foreign server works - no indexes set on data - old way: 1. copy to - 2:36 2. scp - 08:17 3. copy from - 10:11 - postgres_fdw: 1. by the time old way finished it has done 800MB of insert into .. select * from foreign_table Did I miss something in config (meaning I can improve it), or postgres_fdw is just not meant for bulk load (meaning I can't improve it)? (I use it for small data amount reconcile and it works fine. The idea of insert select from fdw instead of running bash commands looked so sweet.)* I tried psql to remote server from local server and \copy table - six minutes - faster then over ssh. The fetch_size option, not available prior to 9.6, can be mocked up with dblink_fetch(CURSOR, fetch_size) - see my answer below.