Farmers in Catalonia are threatening to block Barcelona today. Several assemblies agreed yesterday, on the first day, to extend the protests in the countryside and head with the tractors towards the capital to reach the headquarters of the Ministry of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda, the Government delegation headquarters or the EU headquarters in the city.
The convenors decided to head towards the city center from different areas: Ponent, Central Catalonia, Berguedà, Bages, Solsonès and Vallès. Similar decisions were made in Tarragona and Girona, and also in Lleida and Central Catalonia. A meeting is also scheduled with the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, to communicate the demands through a manifesto accompanied by the signatures they have collected.
Farmers' protests took place yesterday in almost all of the Spanish provinces. The aim of the demonstrators on the first day of the rallies was to paralyze traffic on motorways. There were traffic problems on the A-2 in Zaragoza, on the A-3 near Xest, on the AP-7 in Paterna, on the A-4 in Jaén, on the A -92 in Granada and Córdoba, on the A-42 in Toledo. Also in Aranda de Duero, in Burgos capital, in Valladolid, in Extremadura, in Navarra, in Murcia, in Asturias and in Galicia. Road closures were numerous, as reported by the General Directorate of Traffic. In Catalonia, Unió de Pagesos put the number of mobilized tractors at 4,000, with cuts in different sections of the AP-7, the AP-2, the C-17 or the N-II. Protests continued through the night at some points.
Farmers also used tractors to block access to several cities and to some logistics hubs in the rest of Spain. In Madrid there were complications in most of the entry routes; also in Valencia and Córdoba. Demonstrators began to deploy in the ports, so that the Ministry of Transport reported yesterday "specific incidents" in the port cities of Málaga and Valencia, but "without affecting the logistics centers".
Yesterday's demonstrations were called on the sidelines of the representative organizations of the agricultural sector, which maintain their own concentrations, but with a difference: "We have managed all requests for permits through legal channels", they explain from Asaja, COAG and UPA. Their tractor rides start tomorrow in Ávila, Salamanca, Ciudad Real and Huesca, and will extend throughout February in almost all the provinces.
The central government, for its part, monitored the demonstrations of the agricultural sector throughout the day yesterday and reinforced its proposal of an "outstretched hand" and willingness to "find solutions", the minister said of Agriculture, Luis Planas. "The Government understands and shares the sentiment of the sector", he remarked. Planas described the European Commission's decision to withdraw its legal proposal to reduce the use of pesticides as "smart and timely".
Planas also emphasized that, in the last two years, the Government has approved aid for the agricultural sector for 1,400 million that have benefited 422,500 professionals. Just yesterday, the publication of the list of 140,000 tomato, rice and herbaceous producers who will receive 269 million more due to the drought went ahead. The minister assured that the Executive will continue to support the countryside with more economic measures, if needed.
