Today marks the 16th day of farmers’ protests across Serbia. Dissatisfied milk producers are blocking more than 80 road sections in the country, joined by crop farmers, livestock breeders and fruit growers. A new blockade is also planned near Konarevo.
All roads leading to Kraljevo have been closed. It is impossible to either enter or leave the city.
Only ambulances are being allowed to pass. Police vehicles are positioned on both sides of the blockade, N1 reports.
“No one here is doing well, people are losing money, they have no turnover – that’s why no one is addressing us, they have no understanding. We were at negotiations, they mocked us there, told stories, they were not at all willing to solve the problem… We will not give up, we have nowhere to go back, this has hit rock bottom,” farmer Boban Mijailović told N1.
Since Aleksandar Martinović, and then Dragan Glamočić, took office as agriculture minister, everything has been getting worse and worse, Mijailović states.
“If there is reason and wisdom among them, they should turn to our producers. I guarantee and claim that we still have the healthiest food in the region, and in Europe. We do not feed livestock with GMO feed, yet we import such food. Our great-grandfathers, grandfathers and fathers preserved our hearths and we will fight for that. We are only asking to be paid and to live as we deserve from our work,” Mijailović said.
Farmer from Kraljevo: “We are on the very edge of the abyss”
“We decided on a blockade here in order to radicalize our protest, because as you can see we have received no response from the Ministry of Agriculture. We sent an email to the Government of Serbia, but we have no response from them either,” farmer Predrag Veljković from the vicinity of Kraljevo told N1, adding that the “Government forced us into this.”
Veljković states that a police inspector in Kraljevo was writing down license plates of vehicles at the blockade this morning.
“The situation has boiled over and we are on the very edge of the abyss, everything the ministry has done in recent years, especially Dragan Glamočić who is the alpha and omega of Serbian agriculture, together with Rističević, over the past fourteen years – they have literally brought us to beggary and that is why there is such anger in Serbian agriculture,” Veljković told N1 at the blockade in Konarevo.
“We cannot work for free, we have families, children”
Farmer Srećko Ranković from the vicinity of Gruža told FoNet that during the blockade, which is passing without incidents, ambulances, emergency interventions and vehicles with children are being allowed to pass.
“We will see whether there will be any meetings with the Government, since it seems that the Ministry of Agriculture has no understanding for our demands,” Ranković said.
He emphasizes that none of the farmers are to blame for the fact that they have reached a situation in which their full-day work does not pay off, as through knowledge and labor they have improved production and are striving to develop to the greatest possible capacity and scope.
“We least of all want what is happening today, to be here in the street and not doing our job. People want to go to the fields, to do their work. We cannot work for free and have our future be uncertain. We have families, children – we need to know where we stand,” Ranković said.
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Source: Nova.rs; Foto: N1