Farmers in Spain’s Andalucia to hold mass protest to denounce Donald Trump’s US tariffs

ON February 14, hard-hit farmers in Spain’s Andalucia have a date that will mark the suffering of the agricultural sector. 

Convened by the Agrarian Association of Young Farmers (Asaja), the Coordinator of Farmers and Livestock Organisations (COAG) and the Union of Small Farmers (UPA), farmers and supporters will take to the streets to denounce the “critical” situation imposed on the agricultural sector where the sanctions enforced by Donald Trump’s US government have made life in the rural world wholly unsustainable. A blockade with tractors has been organised in Lucena, where unions have also called for a general strike to take place across the agricultural sector.

At a press conference held today (Wednesday, January 29) representatives of the unions agreed to unite against the ‘inaction of administrations’. Miguel Cobos, the Secretary General of UPA Córdoba, lamented the many problems that the agricultural sector is currently suffering where “prices are now on the ground”. He added that many crops are now worth the same price garnered over 30 years ago and to make matters worse, the olive grove sector, the most important export, has been tremendously impacted.

Virtually all farmers in the region and across Spain are not profiting from their work, leading to those who have come from generations of farming to entirely leave the sector. For this reason, they ask for solutions from the Board, the Government of Spain but, above all, the European Union (EU), who should defend farmers against the attacks of the United States.

Almost all farmers are immersed in a serious profitability crisis, where cuts in aid from the European Union and the imposition of trade barriers at a global level that put obstacles on exports, have led to a sector in crisis.  

Since Tuesday, protests have already taken place in regions such as Galicia, Aragon and the Basque Country, in addition to European countries such as Germany and France.

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Written by

Isha Sesay

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