Fuenlabrada (Spain) (AFP)

Exasperated to sell his cabbage 25 cents, Mariano Gonzalez demonstrated Wednesday in Madrid against the domination of the distribution. "The prices are not fair," he said, in unison with Spanish farmers mobilized for a week.

20 kilometers south of Madrid, this 38-year-old market gardener handles the sickle in the open field to harvest cabbage, with the help of his 73-year-old father who has the same first name.

Here, on the edge of the industrial town of Fuenlabrada, we have cultivated chard (or chard), cabbage or cauliflower for decades.

But nothing is going right, says Mariano "Junior", because the profitability is too low.

The farmers "who are left are about to retire, the few young people like me earn little and the prices charged make you want to work," says the affiliate of the Union of Small Farmers (UPA).

"Very often", adds his father, "it is not even worth collecting" the cabbage, bought "20-25 cents per kilo" from the producer while "the fair price would be double" and that in a supermarket Fuenlabrada, a single little cabbage sells for 1.50 euros.

According to UPA data, wheat - at 179 euros per tonne - is paid less to the producer than 20 years ago, and the kilo of potatoes, paid 15 cents to the farmer, goes to 1 , 20 euro in supermarkets.

So Tuesday, in front of the town hall of Fuenlabrada and the adjacent supermarket, the farmers roared about fifteen tractors. Angel Gonzalez Romeral, a 64-year-old farmer with a well-trimmed white beard, demanded a "base price" for each product.

Otherwise, he argued, "the family farms will all disappear, only the farms which are actually industrial platforms will remain, as in the Almeria area", a huge expanse of greenhouses in Andalusia, the production of which is exported throughout the country. 'Europe.

- "Abusive practices" -

The three main agricultural unions of the country - UPA, COAG and ASAJA - launched at the end of January an exceptional unitary mobilization and the demonstrations multiplied, in different regions: Galicia, Aragon, Basque Country, Extremadura, Rioja, Andalusia, Castile and Leon ...

"The imbalance in the agrifood chain means that large retailers and industrialists are few and powerful in the face of numerous and weak farmers," wrote the three unions, denouncing "abusive and unfair commercial practices".

On Wednesday, hundreds of farmers whistled or waved bells under the windows of the Ministry of Agriculture in Madrid.

At 74, Pedro Lopez had traveled 300 km by car to come from Jaen in Andalusia, where he has 3,000 olive trees. "With the misery prices, 0.27 euros per kilo, it costs more to harvest the olives than to leave them on the tree," he said.

A malaise in the countryside that the far-right Vox party was trying to recover. But when its leader Santiago Abascal appeared at the demonstration, many farmers shouted at him "outside".

The biggest agricultural union, Asaja, classified on the right, assured that the new increase in the minimum interprofessional wage (SMI) announced by the government of the socialist Pedro Sanchez for 2020, after the jump of 22% of 2019, was "the drop that makes the vase overflow ".

An argument rejected in particular by the UPA union, classified on the left. "We do not blame the SMI but the low prices," said AFP its secretary general, Lorenzo Ramos, who is storming distributors who, without even seeing the product, "control the market" for fruit and vegetables, "with a simple cell phone. "

The Spanish government hastened to launch a dialogue with farmers on Monday.

"The huge middle class of Spanish agriculture and livestock needs price support and the CAP (common agricultural policy of the European Union, editor's note) to survive," the Minister for Foreign Affairs said on Wednesday. Agriculture Luis Planas.

His ministry promises "actions to support the most affected sectors", such as fruit and vegetables and olive oil, of which Spain is the world's largest producer.

© 2020 AFP