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Farmers Block Spain’s Main Roads Demanding Fair Prices

Using their tractors, farmers obstruct Spain’s main roads and regional highways to advocate for fair prices.

Farmers and ranchers have blocked the main roads and regional highways of Spain with their tractors on Tuesday to demand fair prices for their productions, reciprocity in imports from developing countries, and less bureaucracy that is suffocating rural areas, as they have claimed. These were unauthorized protests, mostly organized through social media.

Protests and roadblocks have occurred in practically all regions.

In Madrid, there have been disruptions on the main access roads to the region on the A3, A4, A-5, and A-42.

According to a farmer, “cereal prices have decreased by half over the last two years, while fertilizer and diesel costs have tripled. Moreover, there’s a push to digitize all manual field tasks, a move he opposes, stating that if he wanted to work on a computer, he’d be in the bank where his father worked, not tending to the fields.”

Castilla-La Mancha has been one of the regions with the most protests, with disruptions on the radial highways connecting Castilla-La Mancha with Madrid. Roadblocks have been reported in Toledo, Guadalajara, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, and Albacete. Moving on to Castilla y León, nearly 5000 tractors participated in the protests, according to government figures, disrupting traffic in major cities to demand relief for the struggling agricultural sector. There were also disruptions on highways like in Salamanca.

«Europe continues to apply pressure on us, squeezing tighter until we’re left drained and suffocated.»

Farmers and ranchers from Andalusia, Extremadura, and Valencia have also joined these protests.

In Andalusia, they even blocked the A4 towards Córdoba to protest against the situation.

In Extremadura, there were delays on the A66 near Almendralejo in Badajoz, and in the Valencian Community, there were roadblocks and traffic problems on points of the Ronda Norte de Valencia, A3, CV-30, CV-50, as well as numerous jams in the capital.

Additionally, in the northern regions of Spain, tractor demonstrations were also observed.

In Aragon, they took over Paseo de la Independencia in Zaragoza.

In the Basque Country, protests were mainly concentrated in Álava.

And in Catalonia, they blocked the A2 passing through Fontanella in Lleida.

These protests in Spain join those in France, Belgium, Germany, and Portugal.

Amidst these developments, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen responded to farmers’ concerns by announcing the withdrawal of the proposal for a new law on sustainable pesticide use.

Source:

Las Provincias

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