Agrarian vote of punishment – Agroinformacion

Cristóbal Aguado Laza / President of AVA-ASAJA

In a political climate where news appears and disappears in the blink of an eye, I would like to pause and reflect on the important implications of the European agricultural vote movement. The former Minister of Agriculture, Jaime Lamo de Espinosa, titled an article like this: ‘Farmers protest with their votes against their governments’ and the truth is, by reviewing the results of the last elections, it is not wrong at all.

The elections for the appointment of the MEPs dealt with the first stop on those groups that despise the demands of the rural world, especially the Greens, who lost the presence of both in the several countries and in the number of the continent. Ursula Von der Leyen managed to keep the presidency after he sat down to negotiate with COPA-COGECA and promised to correct some issues such as the reduction of bureaucracy, the trade agreement with Mercosur or the protection of the wolf.

In France, a country with a clear rural leadership, the vote of farmers and conservatives definitively rejected the socialist and environmentalist left, as well as Macron, to support conservative parties. As Lamo de Espinosa understands, the French wanted to “return to order, security and an agricultural policy that will make the French fields profitable.” “They believe they are forgotten and abandoned by politicians and authorities.”

Also in the United Kingdom the rural vote contributed to the downfall of the Tories. Lamo de Espinosa reasons that the sector may have blamed the recent governments for “the bad consequences” of Brexit (they lost 2.4 billion pounds) and the insufficient compensation of the new system of incentives environment represents: “The transition from the old CAP to a new one, subsidies are viewed with suspicion. And they may be suffering from lower food production,” he said.

So Spanish politicians can now take good care. The vote of the agricultural and rural environment in general has already begun to say at the polls that they are not willing to be thrown out into the streets by their rulers. And it will only go radical if the political parties do not show with truth that they really protect the region. We are about to enter a point of no return, with one in five hectares abandoned, labor shortages and generational change almost impossible. There is ample evidence that current agricultural policies are a failure that harms not only producers, but also consumers. Let no government surprise us later and blame us for radicalism if it does not meet our demands.