Tractors against the 2030 Agenda: farmers block roads across Spain

Tractors against the 2030 Agenda: farmers block roads across Spain

Blockades leaving drivers stranded, the entrance to Madrid jammed and hundreds of tractors parked in front of Mercazaragoza. The agricultural protest sweeping Spain has a specific list of demands: repeal of the 2030 Agenda, revision of agri-environmental measures, less bureaucracy and a halt to competition from third countries. According to one participant, the mobilisation was scheduled for the 13th and the blockades were brought forward. That is why some argue that what is on the asphalt is, directly, an illegal blockade.

What farmers are demanding in the tractor protests

The list repeated at the foot of every tractor fits in four lines: repeal the 2030 Agenda, change agri-environmental measures, cut bureaucracy and stop unfair competition from third countries. The summary given by an Aragonese farmer is explicit — "what drives us is being able to live from farming" — and helps explain what this is about: it is not a cheque being demanded, it is the ability to keep working.

One of the repeated demands is another: that imported products comply with the same regulations as Spanish ones. If a specific herbicide cannot be used here but can abroad, the cost of producing the same thing is no longer the same. That is the core of the anger, more than subsidies, which at least one participant says he would gladly give up.

Mercazaragoza, the port of Málaga and trucks carrying foreign produce

In Aragon, hundreds of tractors closed off access to the wholesale market. In Málaga, the port was almost completely blocked — with a sustancia ilegal nobody expected and which is explained at the end of this text. Add to that the scene that has circulated on every screen: a truck loaded with imported tomatoes stopped on the road and emptied of its contents.

The blockade is not uniform. It depends on the day, the road junction and how many tractors turn up. What is constant is the effect on those with nothing to do with farming: hours-long traffic jams, collapsed alternative routes and goods arriving late.

Are they workers or farm business owners? The union split

The response from part of the union movement was swift: CCOO argues that those mobilising are not workers but farm business owners. The blow is not minor for a sector that presents itself as the first link in the food chain, and the counter-response was immediate and very harsh: the union leader was accused of never having broken a sweat and of living off the government payroll.

In between lies a country split into two views. Those who look at the tractor and see a self-employed worker suffocated by bureaucracy. And those who look at the tractor and see a subsidy recipient with the CAP as a cushion. The practical consequence of that division is the usual one: labourers and wage earners arguing among themselves while the decision is made elsewhere.

How much does an average farm really earn?

Here the numbers clash. Some producers detail their real assets: two hundred olive trees, one hundred almond trees, three orchards totalling a thousand square metres, chickens, ducks and rabbits, and a calendar that consumes almost two months a year just pruning and shredding debris, plus another month of harvesting and producing their own oil.

Against that portrait, the other version: farms where the heir is a secondary school teacher in another region and works the land at weekends, and sales that, according to several personal accounts, are closed with partial payments outside the formal system. These are individual testimonies, not an accredited practice, but they circulate with names and surnames and fuel distrust.

And a figure used as an example of the cost of a single rule: 500 euros per hectare to remove weeds by hand with a crew when the herbicide is given up.

Glyphosate, technology and the threat of closure

The most controversial herbicide in farming is today an open debate, not a settled fact. One side argues that glyphosate is carcinogenic and points to the history of organochlorine compounds from its manufacturer. The other recalls that it was technology applied to farming, not tractor protests, that took hunger away from 1950s and 1960s Spain. Two incompatible narratives about the same land.

The darkest prediction circulating suggests that up to 80% of farms will end up closing if the rules do not change, just as the textile industry was scrapped. With no official data on the table, that figure works as a horizon, not a forecast.

The cost to the rest of the country and antiestéticar of what is coming

Blocking the entrance to the capital does not come free for anyone. Some admit bluntly that they do not care about the reasons because the blockade has cost them their morning, while others respond that this time people will have to put up with it, because farmers are defending everyone, including those who never blocked anything when they had a problem.

The precedent is what worries people. If a blockade that restricts movement becomes normalised, the next one could be something else. And the next one, as hinted in the calls and comments circulating, is already being planned: hauliers, blockades in front of the Congress — which is why surrounding the building is prohibited — and gatherings at public events, such as the Goya Awards in Valladolid.

Can a spontaneous protest be infiltrated?

The question hangs over the whole conflict. The answer from those who know the terrain is no: they are district groups, everyone knows everyone, they meet by phone or at the village social club. Infiltrating something with no headquarters, no spokesperson and no fixed calendar seems complicated. That does not prevent the movement from eventually being absorbed, or abandoned, once the peak of attention passes.

And one final detail. According to one participant's account, the three main gates of the port of Málaga were closed: there were not enough tractors and the rest of the city did not join in. The trucks left anyway, through the fourth gate, the cruise terminal one, among cruise tourists strolling and shopping. The protest was almost total. Almost.