HUNDREDS of farmers descended on the Spanish capital today, as their ongoing tractor-based protests arrived in Madrid to draw attention to what they claim are the terrible conditions they are enduring in terms of the production and sale of their produce.
Around 500 tractors arrived in the city in five different convoys, with their common destination the Ministry of Agriculture, which is located just across the street from the central Atocha train station.
As well as the disruption to traffic in the centre of the city, the convoys also caused problems on motorways outside of Madrid on Wednesday morning.
The A-42, for example, was blocked by the farmers after the Guardia Civil refused to allow 130 of the 250 tractors to pass, as was the M-23 road into the east of the capital.
By around midday, hundreds of tractors had congregated in the Puerta de Alcalá roundabout, and refused to set off on the last few kilometres to the ministry until the rest of their colleagues had arrived.
Luis Cortes, the state coordinator of the Union de Uniones, which was organising the protest, told Spanish daily El Pais that he hoped to see as many as “1,500 tractors” enter the city.
Organisers complained that the police and the Guardia Civil had stopped hundreds of vehicles on their way to the Spanish capital.
Cortes told El Pais that farmers are ‘tired of the lies from the ministry and from other farming organisations’, and threatened that if there were no new proposals from the European Union by Monday, they would stage another protest.
Farmers also descended on the centre of Malaga on Wednesday, to stage similar protests as those in Madrid.
The protests have been called by farmers, unions and organisations due to what they call a crisis in the sector and agricultural polices from the European Union, the government and Spain’s regional authorities.
They claim that prices for their produce are being squeezed so much that they cannot make a basic living. They are also complaining about rises in production costs, excessive bureaucracy, and inflexible regulations. What’s more they have cited cuts to subsidies as worsening their plight yet further.
The farmers are also complaining about what they call ‘unfair competition’ from other countries such as Morocco, with low prices distorting the market in Spain.
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