Olive Oil Producers and Farmers Across Spain Demand 'Measures of Support'

Hundreds from Spain’s agri­cul­ture sec­tor are expected to protest across the coun­try over the com­ing days.

The pro­tes­tors are demand­ing fair prices for their prod­ucts, includ­ing table olives and olive oil. Since falling to record-lows last year, olive oil prices have remained at ​“unsus­tain­able” lev­els, accord­ing to many in the sec­tor.

“Farmers are tired of receiv­ing mis­er­able prices while con­sumers pay high prices,” Ignacio Huertas, the sec­re­tary-gen­eral of the Union of Small Farmers and Ranchers (UPA-UCE) in Extremadura, said.

UPA, along with the asso­ci­a­tion of young farm­ers and ranch­ers (Asaja) and the Coordinator of Agriculture and Livestock Organizations (COAG) are respon­si­ble for orga­niz­ing the 21 protests that have and will take place.

“Every day, we [farm­ers] have more dif­fi­culty doing our job and it is a more seri­ous prob­lem than many believe,” Juan Moreno, the direc­tor of COAG Extremadura, said.

In addi­tion to low prices, many pro­tes­tors demand ​“mea­sures of sup­port” to help them cope with ris­ing costs of pro­duc­tion – such as the recent increase of the national min­i­mum wage, which rose by five per­cent at the begin­ning of January – and inter­na­tional trade uncer­tain­ties being caused by both Brexit and the impo­si­tion of tar­iffs by the United States on numer­ous Spanish agri­cul­tural prod­ucts in October.

According to Spain’s National Institute of Statistics, the coun­try’s agro-econ­omy also shrank by 2.6 per­cent in the past year, with the last four months of 2019 also prov­ing to be the worst months for farm­ers and pro­duc­ers. The decrease comes on the back of growth lev­els of nearly six per­cent in 2018.

One of the first of these sched­uled protests was held in the west­ern Spanish province of Badajoz on January 29 and descended into vio­lence.

More than 7,000 farm­ers and ranch­ers attended the protest, some of whom clashed with police after break­ing through a police cor­don sep­a­rat­ing them from the first annual Agroexpo. Spain’s min­is­ter of agri­cul­ture, fish­eries and food, Luis Planas, was among the speak­ers at the event.

Protestors hurled var­i­ous objects, includ­ing bot­tles of olive oil, at police before being pushed back. According to the gov­ern­ment, 15 were injured in the protests.

The orga­niz­ers of the protests con­demned the vio­lence and blamed var­i­ous ​“unrep­re­sen­ta­tive” fac­tions for incit­ing the vio­lence.

In response to the inci­dent, Planas also con­demned the vio­lence that took place at Agroexpo but extended an olive branch to pro­tes­tors.

In an inter­view with local broad­caster, Cadena Ser, he said that ​“cor­rec­tive and com­ple­men­tary mea­sures” could be taken to address their con­cerns regard­ing the increase in the min­i­mum wage.

Previous protests were held the day before in the autonomous com­mu­ni­ties of Galicia, Aragón and the Basque Country. Protestors also gath­ered in La Rioja, Andalusia and Castilla y León on January 29.

On January 30, pro­tes­tors also gath­ered in Jaén, block­ing roads and high­ways, to specif­i­cally demand fair prices for olive oil pro­duc­ers, which would in turn help main­tain the region’s (and country’s) strug­gling tra­di­tional olive groves.

“At the cur­rent prices of olive oil in ori­gin (bulk depar­tures from the oil mills), the farmer is mak­ing a loss, espe­cially the olive grow­ers reg­is­tered in the Denominations of Protected Origin, espe­cially pro­duc­ers in Olivar de la Sierra, and those with the high­est cost for the pro­duc­tion of higher qual­ity oils,” mem­bers of the Protected Denominations of Origin Sierra de Segura, Sierra Mágina and Sierra de Cazorla, said.

“Knowing that directly or indi­rectly the entire province lives from the olive grove, from the PDOs of the province all Jiennenses are encour­aged to join the protests,” the mem­bers added.

Meanwhile, four other protests, which were attended by at least 7,000 farm­ers and pro­duc­ers, took place across Castilla y León on the same day.

Further protests are sched­uled for the first half of February and will also take place across Spain, includ­ing in Cantabría, Castilla-La Mancha, Madrid and Granada.

“We can’t wait another day,” UPA, COAG and Asaja said in a joint state­ment at the begin­ning of the protests. ​“We have to change things. All those involved should lis­ten loudly and clearly to the voice of the farm­ers and that is why we will go out to the streets through­out the coun­try.”

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