Farmers block highways around Spanish cities, ports in protests

By Alyssa McMurtry

OVIEDO, Spain (AA) - Farmers’ protests in Spain intensified on Wednesday, with tractors cutting off several major cities, highways and ports.

Dubbed the “super Wednesday” of protests, demonstrations, mostly organized by unions, have besieged all the main accesses to Seville — Spain’s fourth largest city.

The Spanish traffic authority DGT also shows several other highways cut across Andalusia, Extremadura and around the Catalan city of Girona.

According to El Pais, the ports of Tarragona and Motril were also fully blocked on Wednesday morning.

In Madrid, protesters were outraged after the government deauthorized protests around Mercamadrid — Spain’s main wholesale market for fresh produce — just hours before it was scheduled.

In the province of Granada, farmers stopped a truck carrying Moroccan cherry tomatoes, throwing the shipment all over the road.

One of the farmers’ key complaints is that they are dealing with “unfair” competition from non-EU countries that do not need to comply with the same environmental and labor standards and can therefore sell products cheaper.

That is just one of many complaints that have triggered mass mobilizations for more than one week straight.

The farmers are also clamoring for simplified bureaucratic procedures, the enforcement of a law that prohibits farmers from selling products below cost, more government support and changes to a range of local issues from wildlife management to water usage rules.

On Wednesday, Spain’s Agriculture Minister Luis Planas is meeting with representatives from supermarkets, distributors and other representatives from the food system. In that meeting, he said he would analyze prices and how to ensure farmers are paid above the cost of production.

On Thursday, he will meet with representatives from the main farmers’ unions.

Another union, the Union of Unions, is not set to have any representation at Thursday’s meeting. It still aims to hold massive protests in the Spanish capital of Madrid on Feb. 21.