Farmers' protest in Korça/Appeal to the government

2024-07-22 16:00:00, Aktualitet CNA

Farmers' protest in Korça/Appeal to the government

Farmers in protest

Dozens of farmers from the Korça field protested this morning near the intersection of Libonik village. A series of problems concern the farmers of the villages of Maliqi and Korça, which has caused the latter to take the agricultural tools and place them on the side of the entrance road of the village of Drithas, causing traffic to be blocked in this segment.

The cause of the road blockage has caused the police to intervene by moving the protesters to one side, while this has also aggravated the situation causing clashes between the police and the farmers. In the interviews given to the media, the farmers say that today's protest was organized for two reasons. First, they show that agricultural products such as wheat, corn, onions and potatoes do not have a market to sell, and this has caused stock to remain in warehouses.

"I am a farmer with potential, I operate in the farm field with wheat, onion, potato crops. We have reached the point where we can't take it anymore, we are forced by the conditions that we are doing this protest. We have notified all the farmers who have came here. We are penalized by the production of Serbia. We can't sell the potato, onion and wheat. The cost of wheat is 24 lek and we are on sale minus. With the potato and onion culture, Kosovo hits us hard because we don't have these prices, as it is subsidized with higher values ??than ours."

Another reason is the import of these agricultural products from countries in the region, such as Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia. This importation of products has caused the cost to increase while the selling price has decreased excessively.

"We are protesting that the merchandise is not working for us at all. Wheat has gone for 170 lek, potatoes, onions have fallen. We are going out for a peaceful protest for our products, for the children we are raising, that we have other income, at the prices of agricultural inputs that have skyrocketed. We are buying them with debt, because the goods come from abroad, from Serbia. Gjynah the big boss was pushing them and saying "what are we going to do?" at home. The government should stop for a short period at least the importation."

Farmers direct the appeal against the relevant instances to turn their eyes to their problems, starting with the ban on the import of products from abroad and ending with the subsidization of agricultural inputs.

"The government should give up that we have built our lives here. We are old enough to want to work here, we have all our income here. Potatoes, onions, I have cows, milk 500 lek, potatoes 200 lek, onions 200 lek (of old).

In recent years, the problems of the farmers of the southeast have increased more than in previous years, while this situation is going towards bankruptcy according to them. A rather high investment that reaches hundreds of millions of lek for these farmers, while the government has not taken any measures in terms of subsidies. The farmers warned in this protest that in case of neglect of their demands, they will undertake other gatherings, blocking the national axes with their agricultural tools./ CNA