Farmers warn of “tragedy” and protest against fuels

“<span class=”news bold” >It is an alarming thing, it is impossible to work in the fields, the cost of production is super elevated ", argued today Bruno Jacob, who has about 600 hectares agricultural in this Alentejo county, where he sows cereals like wheat and oats.

The farmer, who also has cattle – he has 1,000 sheep, 400 goats and 300 cows – said that, given the current price of fuels and production factors, he is considering reducing the area of cultivation.

“ This year, I am thinking of maybe 25 to 30% of the area I usually do, because it is impossible to get these prices by the end of the campaign”, he said.

Also the farmer António Morgado, who owns nearly 600 hectares of agriculture, a part with olive grove, warned that “these successive increases” of the price of fuels and production factors are “playing the personnel bankrupt.”.

And this year, he warned, “there will certainly be a lot of uncatched olives”, because it does not compensate for the current price of olive oil.

“The olive oil has today risen to 3,38 euros”, a price that “is not going to give 50 cents a kilo” of olive, so with the services “to 30 and 35 euros, it is better to leave it there”, in the tree, he pointed out.

These were some of the regrets of the farmers of APROSERPA – Association of Producers of the Council of Serpa who gathered this morning in an estate near Vila Nova de São Bento, in protest against the price of fuels, especially of agricultural diesel, which is over 1.80 euros per litre.

Agriculture in the county currently faces “impractical conditions, especially that of a dry man,” the president of APROSERPA, João Revez, told journalists during the concentration in the camp, surrounded by almost 30 tractors.

The government’s support “is insufficient”, he said, explaining that “at this time it is completely impossible” for farmers to move “for autumn/winter sowing”.

“We already know that we will work with loss”, because, even if the weather conditions help and “the year comes in favor”, they will not “be able to reflect [the increase in production costs] on the sale of the products at the end of the year”, he assured.

Regarding the price of fuels, João Revez illustrated that, per day, with the use of tractor to prepare the land, a farmer spends “320 litres of diesel” in eight hours of work: “Now multiply this for a week,” he challenged.

The support that the Government has already announced for farmers translates into an accumulation of “€36” for each, he added.

“ These 36 euros can't buy 20 liters of gas oil, which is what an average power machine, with 100 horses, spends on an hour of heavy work. If we have two of these machines working on an acre, we arrive at the end of the day and spend the same thing that “a diesel car can spend to travel 6,000 kilometers,” he exemplified.

And, in addition, “everything has become more expensive,” he said, alluding to fertilizers, fertilizers or hardware, among other factors of production.

APROSERPA, which wants to lower the price of agricultural diesel, called for the movement to the land of the Minister of Agriculture, José Manuel Fernandes, to talk to farmers and to see “the tragedy” they face, otherwise the ‘men of the land’ threaten to advance with other forms of struggle.