Hundreds of Catalan farmers took their discontent to Barcelona this Wednesday in one of the largest mobilizations in the sector in recent years. Some 2,000 tractors from Lleida, Tarragona and central Catalonia entered Diagonal and Meridiana avenues starting at two in the afternoon with the aim of putting their discontent at the center of the political agenda. The march was created spontaneously through the 6F movement, but has had the support of the Unió de Pagesos union.
It has also been a wake-up call from the rural to the urban world, from which they feel increasingly distanced, many of the protesters commented. “We are abandoned.”
After a ten-hour trip, the first tractor that entered Diagonal parked next to Plaza Jacint Verdaguer after four in the afternoon. The entire road to Francesc Maciá was blocked by farmers' vehicles, with messages and slogans similar to those heard in European demonstrations. “If the countryside dies, the city does not eat”, “enough of bureaucracy”, “our end, your hunger”, “we need water”.
“The people of the city and the politicians have to understand what is happening to us, we do not want aid, we want to be able to live off our work and our product,” insisted Joan Benet, Jaume Benet and Egoi Yazcue, farmers and ranchers from Marçà (Priorat). , who headed the column. The prices they receive – they added – are suffocating them and some claimed to feel overwhelmed with the paperwork and the new digital field notebook, a registry promoted by the European Union and mandatory to access subsidies. “My mother takes care of the paperwork because I can't handle everything and I also don't understand the computer very well,” lamented the young owner of a small pig and cow farm in Tarragona.
The restrictions due to the drought in Catalonia and the management of the Generalitat were also the target of the protest. “Last year I couldn't pick anything, and this year I'm going the same way because they have restricted our irrigation by 80% and it doesn't rain,” explained Josep Maria, owner of a cereal plot in Palau de Plegamans, who had parked his tractor. on Gran Via with Passeig de Gràcia, another of the streets collapsed by the mobilizations. Neither the aid of 46 euros per hectare that was promised by the Ministry of Agriculture nor those announced by the Generalitat of Catalonia have yet arrived to alleviate the effects of the lack of water, the man assured.
From the meeting with President Pere Aragonès at the Palau de la Generalitat they expected “little,” many commented. At the very least, they should be listened to, cared for, and not have their situation left in a box. “Take us seriously,” they repeated.
This feeling of being ignored was very present among some of the protesters. They gave as an example the way in which the people of Barcelona received them upon their arrival. Some with sincere enthusiasm, others with a kind of condescending sympathy. “They applaud us because they think we're funny, when we come here five or six times if we don't fix things we'll see,” said Ramon Figueres, a farmer from Baix Llobregat. While he must follow health regulations, marinades, the use of chemicals and other products, European laws and trade agreements – he complained – constitute a true gateway for non-EU foods that do not meet the same standards.
They want solutions, they insisted, and they will not stop the protests until they get them.
