Thousands of farmers are demonstrating in central Madrid today, where they once again descended on tractors, protesting the difficulties facing the agricultural sector in Europe.

With a chorus of horns and bells, dozens of tractors arrived at noon at the Ministry of Agriculture in front of which thousands of farmers demonstrated holding banners with slogans such as “the countryside in the abyss and the government does not care”.

The new mobilization — after that of last Wednesday during which 500 tractors entered Madrid-– takes place at a time when the ministers of agriculture of the “27” are meeting in Brussels and hundreds of tractors are paralyzing life in the capital of Europe.

“We will go to the end but the forces are diminishing” because these protests entail economic “losses” as farmers leave their farms, Maria Vijoslada García, a 43-year-old grape grower who came from the La Rioja region (north ), at the demonstration in Madrid, which was called by the three largest Spanish agricultural unions (Asaja, COAG and UPA).

“We are waiting for solutions, but quickly”, from the EU and Spain, “because we are suffocating” and “our work costs us more than what it brings”, he added.

Like her, Spanish farmers have been protesting almost non-stop since February 1, mostly blocking roads.

“We are less and less young (in the profession) and that is the consequence of all this, the cost,” lamented Victor Iglesias, a 24-year-old grain grower in Salamanca province (center).

Like their European colleagues, Spanish farmers complain about what they see as unfair competition from non-EU countries, which are therefore not subject to the same rules, and about a bureaucracy and rules that they see as too strict.

They also complain about the low purchase prices of their products under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the lack of assistance in the sector.

They have been welcomed repeatedly since the beginning of their mobilizations by the Minister of Agriculture Luis Planas, who has pledged mainly to defend in Brussels the simplification of the CAP and to improve the Spanish legislation on the food chain so that farmers do not sell their products at a loss .