The struggle of the peasants has been rewarded this time. Avian influenza is not an easy conflict: as all experts believe that new varieties of influenza that have proliferated and mutated in large poultry farms have spread around the world, bans on the sale of birds abroad – which have disappeared from the markets of the South Basque Country – and orders to massacre all ducks in areas where the epidemic catches them have proliferated and mutated.

So did the French administration last spring. Growers and growers who grow ducks industrially agreed, as did the industry. On the other hand, the prohibition was challenged by a few who raised them on small farms in a very controlled manner and often with older, tougher breeds, mainly in the Basque Country and with the support of the OECD. LA LUZ narrated this struggle, which left images of peaceful resistance and violent police harassment.

In addition to protecting the ducks of some small farms from unnecessary massacre in combat, the farm of the Lataillade family, in Bidaxune, has played an important role in the production of the “chryaxera” ducks, more prepared for sustainability than the industrial breeds. The OECD farmers committed a bold act of disobedience by distributing their duck puppies among the volunteers to ensure that the farmers who keep the breed alive and raise them for months to come did not miss the year.

Despite the calming of the most spectacular battles, during the summer and autumn of 2017 the gendarmerie received very closely both the main protagonists who confronted the authorities, as well as the owners of the farms responsible for the ELB. Long hours of questioning in the gendarmerie, very strict administrative controls over and over again, close monitoring, economic damage caused by all these movements...

The OECD denounced that the dossier has been non-technical or scientific but political in those days and tried to negotiate a political solution with the authorities. An agreement was also reached in December, but trade unionists denounce that although the OECD has fulfilled its commitments, the administration has not completed its own.

Recognizing the work of the elected officials who have thanked the citizens who have accompanied them in the struggles of these months and facilitated their relations with the administration, the OECD takes stock of the conflict: “For two years in a row, they have killed millions of birds, devouring huge amounts of public money: they are absurd decisions, in our opinion, because they do not guarantee the recurrence of the disease, but instead they bring about the re-emergence of the duck plantation, forcing them to stop the small farms, which can no longer lead economically, imposing on them the acceleration of a multitude of standards (large expenses), which are normally disconnected from their reality and size. Clearly, these policies establish popular, external, and self-centered parenting in the lanjer. That is why we rejoice in our struggle, which has allowed us to save part of the holiday season for the Bidaxune farm and the crops that work with it.”