Spanish flags and banners reading "Endangered breeders" or "SOS rural world" marked the long procession deployed over four kilometers and led by tractors, riders and hunting dogs.
The rural world marched in the center of the Spanish capital between the ministries of Ecological Transition and Agriculture, at the call of the "Rural Alliance" platform which claims to represent some ten million Spanish peasants.
"This government is ruining us, with more and more expensive fuels," Nora Guzmán, who came from Pozuelo de Alarcón, west of Madrid, told AFP at the wheel of her tractor.
"It is time to look for solutions" to the difficulties of the rural world "which occupies 80% of the territory", declared to the press Pedro Barato, president of the agricultural employers' confederation, ASAJA.
"That's enough! Let the president of the Spanish government stop traveling abroad and start acting" in Spain.
The agricultural world thus intended to denounce the soaring prices of fuels and fertilizers, coupled with a reduction in margins, and to protest against rural desertification and government measures in favor of animal welfare, aimed in particular at restricting the breeding of shepherd and hunter.
"Today, we protect animals more than men" by "incoherent and absurd standards that the government wants to impose on us", lamented Fernando Sáez, a farmer who had made the trip from Cordoba with his hunting dog, to the capital.
This large peasant demonstration was organized the day after that which brought together thousands of Spaniards at the call of the far-right Vox party, to protest against the general increase in prices in the agri-food and energy, aggravated by the conflict in Ukraine.
Demonstration by farmers and breeders against rising prices on March 20, 2022 in Madrid Pierre-Philippe MARCOU AFP
The country's main trade union confederations have for their part called for a general strike on 23 March.
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© 2022 AFP