Paphos farmers will on Saturday stage a symbolic tractor protest in solidarity with their European counterparts.
Farmers in Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, Greece, Portugal and Romania have taken to the streets amid tensions over the impact on farming of the EU’s green policies they say are devastating their livelihoods, as well as opening the door to cheap Ukrainian imports for which the EU has waived quotas.
In most countries, farmers say they are not paid enough, are choked by taxes, red tape and excessive environmental rules. Farmers also take issue with new EU subsidy rules, such as a requirement to leave four per cent of farmland fallow.
On Thursday farmers threw eggs and stones at the European Parliament, starting fires near the building and setting off fireworks amid protests to press a summit of European Union leaders to do more to help them.
The Paphos farmers say they will protest in solidarity along the Amargetis-Galatarias-Statos road at 10am on Saturday. They will congregate at the intersection that leads from Galataria to Statos. They say their plan does not involve blocking traffic.
Farmers’ problems are now “a pan-European problem,” they said, due to high production costs, reduced prices imposed on producers by traders and difficulties created by intensifying regional conflicts.
They will call on the government to act immediately to avoid worst-case scenarios developing in Cyprus. They say conditions for them are becoming equally as difficult, not only due to high production costs, including energy prices, but also the reduction in prices from traders for their produce.
On Thursday, general-secretary of Eka farmers union Panikos Hambas warned that tractors had already surrounded the institutions of the European Union and that Cypriot producers could end up having to do the same.
“The Cypriot people must understand that without the farmers, there will be no food, therefore any problems that exist must be resolved,” he added.
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