Confusion in the agricultural sector due to the drift of the demonstrations: "We no longer know who is who or what each person is asking for"

David Vigario Merida

Merida

Updated Monday, February 12, 2024-01:41

"As a rancher in that demonstration, we no longer know who is who or what each person is asking for; I think it is more about politics or the interests of some for another purpose." Yesterday's reflection Sunday is from

Eloy Ureña

(48 years old), owner of a small farm in Fayón, a municipality of Zaragoza with 379 inhabitants. A few hours after Ureña's sentence, the majority of agricultural associations from various regions of Valladolid, Soria, Segovia and Ávila announced their "distancing" from platform 6F "after the latest events and statements made by spokesperson Lola Guzmán against the Forces and State Security Bodies and the media". They justified the decision because "

they do not want to put the lives of farmers and ranchers at risk

" and considered that these events "have nothing to do with their movement." There are many more examples.

Since Saturday night, after the Metropolitano episode, farmers and ranchers have been disconcerted. The video in which the self-proclaimed leader of the "independent and social" movement attacks the agents

spreads like wildfire on WhatsApp and Telegram

, precisely the two channels that this group has used to mobilize the agricultural sector: "

ETA killed you shortly

," arrived to tell them after throwing several outbursts at them.

The internal coordination group of 6F justified the events, the result of "tense situations", as can be read in their messages: "Any of us in a situation like the one experienced yesterday [on Saturday] could have said

those words and more

" and "it is clear that they are taking advantage of any mistake or whatever to discredit Lola [Guzmán] and any of us." But it wasn't just the disqualifications of the Police. "The call on Friday to surround all the headquarters of the Government Delegations in the autonomous communities was also a failure and was already

a symptom that they did not have real social support

, apart from the noise of social networks," says an expert. in agrarian unionism. They also did not have enough support to blockade the capital of Spain, as they had promoted during the previous days.

The photograph of the members who appear on a platform directing the Wanda assembly has also multiplied criticism: "They are clever people who want to take advantage of the countryside and transportation sector to which none of them belong." "We cannot leave something so serious [the problems of the agricultural sector], and ones that are historically repeated, in populist hands." "They want an agrarian 15M, the language they use is similar, and thus they take advantage of the latent anger of the countryside for their own benefit...". There are a plethora of examples.

Many farmers and ranchers had joined this group "in good faith" among other things because there was an obvious breeding ground due to the "critical" situation in recent agricultural campaigns. At the same time, they have felt singled out by the Government itself in the last legislature (especially by the leaders of Unidas Podemos), who accused them, among other issues, of being primarily responsible for climate change. "There was constant legislation against us with laws such as Animal Welfare, wolf laws, the quality of our meat abroad was questioned... it was a continuous siege," sources from the sector recall.

If we add to that the fact that the revolt had broken out weeks before in almost all the countries of Europe except here, "the first populist who arrived [for the 6F] ended up taking advantage of the good will of the majority of the people in the countryside" . The vice president of Asaja,

Eduardo Peces,

said it differently yesterday

: "When people are desperate, they take desperate actions," although he also criticized himself: "We should have reacted sooner, but we are working day by day with the sector," He pointed out to Efe.

And now that? This platform has called this morning to the media in Madrid, a territory where professional agricultural organizations will begin again today, Monday, to demonstrate in a calendar full of demonstrations until the 24th. "This should be a decisive week to unblock the situation "says a source from the agricultural organizations, although at the moment there are no contacts with the Government after the OPAS called off Tuesday's meeting with the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration,

Elma Saiz

, due to "agenda problems." Another agrarian leader criticizes that the Executive "is knocked out with this issue" and "has not had a strategy since the tractor-trailers began" either to stop the mobilizations or to stop the attempt to "conscientiously" divide the rural people.