Eduardo Pérez Hoces, vice president of Asaja, has assured that the countryside wants “measures, solutions and for the political class to act once and for all” to find a solution to the crisis that the agricultural sector is going through. The Riojan has also signed that the agricultural sector “is ruined” by the policies of the Spanish Government and European organizations, warning that farmers “do not want white laws.”
In an interview given to EFE, Pérez Hoces has vindicated the claims expressed by primary sector workers who have demonstrated in recent days, stating that, despite the mobilizations being called independently through social networks, their demands are the same. that professional agricultural organizations (OPAS) have been asking for for “many years.”
“There is nothing new,” he said, speaking of the requests from the Pérez Hoces camp, who is also president of the Rioja Association of Farmers and Ranchers (Arag)-Asaja. After reiterating that the claims of the protests are “a copy and paste”, he has criticized the actions of politicians, ensuring that they make change impossible because “they are not to reverse the situation.”
Criticism of the CAP
He has stressed that what the Spanish countryside sees are “photos, moments of the politician taking a photo and what we (farmers and ranchers) want are measures”, such as “reversing the Common Agrarian Policy (CAP), which is in against the sector completely and that is ruining us, as we are seeing.”
Therefore, “not so much photo, nor so much law that, in the end, comes to nothing”, but “real actions to reverse the situation of agriculture and livestock”, which is what, apart from in Spain, has been made visible in other protests in Europe, he stressed. This young 34-year-old farmer has also expressed the support of his organization to the farmers and ranchers who have mobilized throughout the country because, for the most part, they are part of the OPAS.
He has highlighted the weight that the primary sector has in this region, where, as in the entire country, “farmers and ranchers are leaving their jobs to fight for their rights” in these protests, which have not been communicated. “We hope,” he stressed, “that, once and for all, the political class listens to this very important sector, which is the agricultural and livestock sector, which gives life to our people and quality to the products” and which requires “dignity and I respect”.
Desperate actions in desperate situations
Regarding the ways in which these mobilizations have occurred, this vice president of the Agrarian Association of Young Farmers (Asaja) has recognized that “when people are desperate, they take desperate actions”, such as the organization of this protest through the s social networks and WhatsApp groups.
He has assured that, as a farmer who wants to make a living from his agricultural activity, he also supports the sentiment and demands of these mobilizations, for which he has expressed his greatest support. The OPAS, he has acknowledged, are making self-criticism and, “perhaps we should have reacted before (these mobilizations), but we are working day by day with the sector.”
The participants in these protests “know that, in the end, the interlocutors with the Administrations are the PAHOs”, so they hope that the situation will be redirected and “this can be brought to a successful conclusion” for the good of this sector. “It cannot be that a mere intermediary takes 400% of what they pay us (the producers for our products) and this is what must be reversed once and for all,” he stressed.
To Minister Planas: change the chip and green ideology
For this reason, “we hope that, once and for all, the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, will pay attention and send those claims that we have been making for many, many years, that he will transfer them to the European Union” and “change the chip “. , that green ideology that you have and go to the European Commission to work and support” the sector. The same complaint has been extended to the Minister of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, who “is ruining extensive livestock farming in the high mountains”, has indicated.
“But I don’t care one or the other. This case is the farmers and ranchers,” he emphasized. Along the same lines, he appealed to the Spanish MEPs to “act once and for all because the situation is very bad.” We want you to take action. We are just a few months away from the elections to the European Parliament and we want them to change the chip. “They are destroying European agriculture and livestock farming,” he concluded.
