U.S there is nothing left to do at the moment but to draw the public’s attention to the fact that we really have big problems and that we need to solve those problems with these protestsit,” said Doležal. According to him, it also affects suppliers of agricultural enterprises.
“We are ready to show our displeasure and continue those protests,” the chairman of the Agricultural Union, Martin Pýcha, also told journalists.
The Minister of the Excellent Agricultural Organization was not invited to today’s meeting. Dolezal said the minister had plenty of time to to tell farmers what he intends to do about the current situation. “He was more than a month old. Basically, we got a letter from them where we didn’t really learn anything new,” he said.
In addition to the Agrarian Chamber of the Czech Republic, the Agricultural Union of the Czech Republic, representatives of the Initiative for Agricultural and Food Enterprises, the Czech-Moravian Association of Agricultural Entrepreneurs, the Association of Young Farmers and the Association of Private Agriculture of the Olomouc Region also agreed to the protests. Thus, their management complied with the recommendation of the presidium of the Agrarian Chamber from May 2the chamber said in a press release.
There will be agricultural machinery protest drives in Prague and events in front of some government offices. The organizers are also considering organizing an event for the public on Letná.
Among the farmers’ demands is the launch of a program to support rural employment in the form of discounts on social insurance, return of national subsidies to the level of 2022, reduction of tax on agricultural land or non-taxation of European subsidies. They also want a solution to the surplus of agricultural commodities on the European market by limiting imports from third countries and supporting exports or fully co-financing the rescue package for the year 2024, which, according to the chamber, is being prepared by the European Commission.
According to Doležal, the biggest problem for farmers now is financial flows. “We have a huge drop in income, in addition to what was said here, our costs are increasing,” řeccl. He mentioned higher property tax and complex bureaucracy.
The Czech Republic, like other European countries, is repeatedly experiencing farmers’ protests this year. In the Czech Republic, they were last held on March 20, when more than 1,600 pieces of agricultural machinery took to the roads in the regions and across the borders. Farmers demonstrated in Prague on March 7, according to the spokesperson of the Agrarian Chamber, 3,000 to 4,000 farmers and 1,000 agricultural machines took part in this event. In protest against EU policies, tractors took to the roads on February 22, slowing traffic in cities, on main roads and at border crossings.
