The tractors have left different points in Gipuzkoa at 7:00 hours and the intention is to meet at the headquarters of the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa in Donostia. They have been organised under the motto "For a decent primary sector".

As in other countries, in Gipuzkoa they have also been organised through a WhatsApp group. EITB interviews the farmer of Aia Joseba Pagadizabal, one of the organizers of the mobilization. He says that "seeing that unions don't move," they decide to go out on their own. "We are drowned and anxious, and we want us to visit our situation."

A young farmer participating in the protests reveals to ARGIA that in the WhatsApp group farmers have organized themselves freely. They felt the need to reclaim things, they could not wait and they felt the need to take advantage of the wave that has opened around them. They have seen the opportunity to give visibility to the sector. The farmer who testified did not participate in the organizing team and stressed that his opinion was yours. He considers that in Gipuzkoa the unions did not move, and instead they saw how they went out in Bizkaia: “There the unions leave. Here they said we weren't that bad. Yes, we are wrong, we too have problems. It is becoming more and more difficult to make progress and in the face of this black future we want to change things. We cannot go on like this.” Aware that EHNE and ENBA will begin to protest as from 1 March, he stresses that many of the participants in today’s protest will also be present in the union mobilisations: “We are not against the unions, we wanted to take advantage of the wave.”

In the following video published by the media Noaua.eus, tractors appear at the large Urbil hotel in Usurbil.

#Usurbil leaves. Gipuzkoa baserritarras protest on tractors to Donostia: pic.twitter.com/b4kYBCv5gs

— noaua (@noaua) February 12, 2024

EHNE and ENBA start protests on 1 March

In the protest on 1 March, “essential measures and policies” for the sector will be put on the table. They do not provide more details of the day in the note sent to the media. They add that they will talk to the unions in the Basque Country and that they will try to reach a timetable for the coming days.

EHNE and ENBA point out that they have so far worked silently with different actors that affect the sector and “proposing solutions beyond problem signaling”. They say they are going to go on that road, “this time it’s not going to be silent.”

Away from February 6 protests

Both trade unions stated in their information note that they wanted to move away from the mobilisations called for on 6 February. They believe that at the origin of the protests, messages and altars there was “disorder” and the organizers were away from the agricultural unions.

It has chosen to “set aside the general slogans” and “make proposals and demands adapted to the reality” of Gipuzkoa. The peculiar characteristics of agriculture in Gipuzkoa stand out: small family model farmhouses that operate in mountainous territories.

The note says that they understand the anger of the peasants and that they coincide with many of the ups and downs heard on the streets: there are laws that drown the sector, that have a lack of profitability, and unsustainable bureaucracy, among others. However, they call for “defining the causes of the problems, clarifying who is responsible for the changes and demanding the steps”.

They don’t want attention to be diverted, “and think everything in Brussels needs to be fixed.”