argia.eus
INPRIMATU
The triumph of farmers and ecologists: the large 1,000 French cows barn will be emptied with the new year
  • To say 1,000 vaches has been in the French State in recent years when one of the hottest conflicts in the agricultural world has been mentioned, faced on the one hand with companies dedicated to the promotion of industrial agriculture and on the other hand with the coalition of small farmers and neighbours, which the Confederation Paysanne trade union brings together. The winners were: The company managing the giant herd of 1,000 cows has reported that milk production is suspended from 1 January and the cows will begin to be removed.
ARGIA @argia 2020ko abenduaren 08a
Ducrat herriko (Pikardia, Frantzia) ukuilu erraldoian behiak sala robotizatuan jezten.

ELB Euskal Herriko Laborarien Batasuna broadcast on Wednesday, 8 December, a press release full of joy: "Farm stop of 1,000 cows: victory against industrial laborantxa". The farmers' union has reported that on 1 January the gigantic farm, which brings together more than 1,000 cows, will suspend milk production and thus end the conflict that has lasted for seven years.

At the time, ARGIA mentioned that in the northern part of the French state, in the vicinity of Amiens, an asteroid was built by the industrial Michel Ramery and was occupied and evicted in May 2014. The militant farmers of the Confederation Paysanne, within the Basque ELB, and the Novissem association, which groups together neighbors and ecologists in the area, were the ones who carried out this action, like the whole campaign before and after.

Like citizens, small baserritars have carried out numerous protest activities in recent years. La Banderola says: "Neither industrial livestock nor food garbage. It doesn't make 1,000 cows."

The company sued the occupants... but not even the company got rid of the courts, as early as 2015 in an inspection the observers found in the stables 1,000 cows declared by Ramery and 300 more. The company lost the case and yet asked the State for compensation of EUR 33 million for the possible slowness of justice.

In the French state there has been a strong campaign by small farmers against large cows, arguing that many small farms are better than a small number of giant farms and denouncing the damage to all the classes caused by these gigantic stables, from the living conditions of the animals that house them, to the poor quality of milk, the pollution produced by this industrial production model. In the Spanish state the farms have expanded much more easily, as we have seen among us in Caparroso (Navarra); it is also a driving force for the new giant cowboy of Soria.

"The legend '1,000 Behiko etxaldea' is usually used to refer to the model of industrial agriculture that we denounce and reject," the ELB wrote in its press release. "This victory is a small step in the long struggle that the ELB and Confédération Paysanne unions maintain in daily life for the defense of farmers and popular agriculture."