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“PRECIOS JUSTOS PARA UN OLIVAR VIVO,” read one ban­ner, which stretched across the entirety of a wide Madrid boule­vard and took 16 men to carry.

“Fair prices for a liv­ing olive grove.”

Tens of thou­sands of olive grow­ers and oil pro­duc­ers (esti­mates range from 15,000 to more than 30,000) marched in the streets of the Span­ish cap­i­tal on Thurs­day, demand­ing some­thing be done about the unsus­tain­ably low prices they have been receiv­ing for their olive oils since March.

The pro­tes­tors demanded that both the Span­ish gov­ern­ment and the Euro­pean Union take con­crete actions to help improve their eco­nomic sit­u­a­tion. They also voiced their dis­plea­sure at being caught up in a sim­mer­ing trade dis­pute between the E.U. and the United States.

As of Octo­ber 18, some Span­ish olive oil exports to the U.S. will face a 25-per­cent tar­iff. Roughly 50,000 tons of olive oil exports are expected to be impacted.

Orga­niz­ers of the protest, which include the Asso­ci­a­tion of Young Farm­ers (ASAJA), the Coor­di­na­tor of Agri­cul­ture and Live­stock Orga­ni­za­tions (COAG) and the Union of Small Farm­ers (UPA), have demanded that the gov­ern­ment increase its invest­ments in tra­di­tional olive groves, change the rules regard­ing self-reg­u­la­tion within the frame­work of the future E.U. Com­mon Agri­cul­tural Pol­icy (CAP) and nego­ti­ate with the U.S. to get olive oil off of its list of retal­ia­tory tar­iffs.

Luis Car­los Valero, the direc­tor of ASAJA Jaén, said that it was espe­cially impor­tant for pro­duc­ers to be able to pri­vately store oil from one year to the next with­out hav­ing to worry about being accused of spec­u­la­tion in the Euro­pean Court of Com­pe­ti­tion.

“The first is that the exten­sion of the stan­dard is rec­og­nized through the Inter­pro­fes­sional of Olive Oil [an orga­ni­za­tion that rep­re­sents pro­duc­ers, dis­trib­u­tors and exporters] by the Euro­pean Union and we can save the oil from one year to the next with­out being taken to the Court of Com­pe­ti­tion under the assump­tion that we are spec­u­lat­ing,” he said.

This step, Valero argued, would help keep prices con­sis­tent from on-year to off-year and pro­vide pro­duc­ers with the finan­cial sta­bil­ity they need to main­tain their groves and pro­vide for their fam­i­lies.

In a series of state­ments on Twit­ter, the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Fish­eries and Food (MAPA) said that it had heard the pro­test­ers’ demands and would con­tinue the work it was already doing to meet the ones it could.

“[Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture] Luis Planas con­veys to the olive oil sec­tor once again that he shares the con­cern about the anom­alous evo­lu­tion of prices in this cam­paign and empha­sizes that for this rea­son, he has been work­ing with the agri-food coop­er­a­tives of Spain,” MAPA said in response to the pro­test­ers.

“Regard­ing the claims of the olive oil sec­tor, Luis Planas notes the work that has already been done together with the sec­tor in recent months with under­stand­ing, sol­i­dar­ity and sup­port,” the min­istry added.

At the end of it all, Valero said that he was happy with how the protests went. He believes the gov­ern­ment knows exactly what olive farm­ers and pro­duc­ers want from them.

“The protest has been a great suc­cess for the large influx of farm­ers and olive grow­ers from all over Spain,” he said. ​“What we hope is that, after the suc­cess of the demon­stra­tion, the tasks for which we have come will be achieved.”

• Agroin­for­ma­cíon


• Asaja Jaén