The Community of Farmers and Ranchers of Almendralejo (Clygal) has made an "urgent" call to the entire rural environment and to citizens in general to support the large tractor demonstration called for this Wednesday in Madrid, as well as the subsequent camping promoted by APAG Extremadura Asaja in front of the Ministry of Agriculture, which will last until November 12, on the eve of the start of the electoral campaign.
With this support, the agrarian organization aligns itself with the tractor demonstration in Madrid jointly promoted by APAG Extremadura Asaja, COAG, and La Unión in front of the headquarters of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food, a protest that will be reinforced with a permanent concentration organized by Asaja in "sign of resistance".
Under the slogan "Feeding must provide to live," the primary sector wants to focus on what they consider the greatest crisis in the countryside so far in the 21st century, with farming and ranching families in a situation of absolute defenselessness and economic suffocation, working from dawn to dusk and finding that, at the end of each day, they only accumulate losses.
Clygal once again denounces that the costs of essential inputs have become "completely unmanageable" and that labor costs have "skyrocketed," while the buying positions and industries "abuse their position by systematically imposing and agreeing on lower prices." As "dramatic examples" of this "imbalance," it cites the price of grapes and olives, whose selling prices are "well below the actual production costs," according to the agrarian organization in a press release.
This extreme economic situation is compounded by the "failure" in the application of the Food Chain Law, which "continues to be effectively unfulfilled" in the field, leaving the producer "unprotected against the large distribution chains."
The agricultural sector also emphasizes the existence of "fierce unfair competition" resulting from the "massive and uncontrolled entry" of products from third countries outside the EU, which "are not required to meet the same fiscal, environmental, or control guidelines" as community producers, "bursting the domestic market and destroying the livelihood of local farms."
In this context, farmers and ranchers demand the "immediate" implementation of mirror clauses, considered an "unavoidable measure" to ensure the survival of the countryside.
From Clygal, it is insisted that this crisis does not only hit farmers and ranchers, but "threatens the social and economic fabric of the entire rural world."
The entity recalls that, when the primary sector, described as the "undisputed economic engine" of the Tierra de Barros region, goes into decline, a "domino effect is generated that inevitably drags down small commerce, food, hospitality, leisure, and local investment."
Except for purely transforming industries, which "benefit from the devaluation of the raw material, the agrarian crisis directly bleeds the vast majority of the citizenry."
For all these reasons, Clygal emphasizes that attending this Wednesday in Madrid is "a duty of all the neighbors to defend rural localities, their employment, and the future of the families that feed us," and concludes by reminding that those who wish to travel by bus to the capital to participate in the mobilizations can register until this Tuesday at the offices of the Community of Farmers.