The Treviño and Álava Association for the Countryside (Ataca) has called on farmers to participate this Thursday in a tractor rally in Vitoria-Gasteiz to demand that Álava and the whole of Euskadi be officially recognized as drought areas.
According to what Ataca detailed in a note, the mobilization will start at 11:15 AM in the parking lot of the Buesa Arena. From there, the caravan of tractors will head towards the headquarters of the Basque Government in Lakua, where it is expected that they will gather starting at 12:30 PM.
The central objective of the protest is to achieve the declaration of a drought area for Álava and all of Euskadi "to facilitate access for professionals to specific aid that contributes to alleviating the serious effects that the continued absence of precipitation and the repeated episodes of high temperatures are having on the sector."
The organization has emphasized that extensive livestock farming is the one suffering most intensely from this situation, although it has highlighted that intensive livestock farming and spring crops, as well as summer irrigated crops, are also seriously affected by the lack of water.
Furthermore, it has pointed out that this water scarcity adds to other "structural" problems that the countryside faces, including the increase in the costs of fertilizers and fuel linked to war conflicts such as those in Ukraine or Iran.
Ataca has warned that this international instability "compromises the profitability of the farms, which are also threatened by trade agreements that open the doors of Europe to products that do not meet the quality standards that farmers and ranchers from Álava do guarantee."
With the mobilization this Thursday, the association aims not only to demand the declaration of a drought area but also to bring to the table the need for concrete responses to the rising costs of inputs, foreign competition, and the other difficulties facing the agricultural sector in the territory.