Farm Leaders Carry a 140 Million Euro Demand to Parliament and São Bento Today, Calling the Government's Help Far Too Small

About 150 leaders of farming and forestry associations from every region of Portugal gather outside the Assembleia da República this Monday morning to demand 140 million euros in compensation for the sector. The protest, called by the Confederação dos Agricultores de Portugal (CAP), starts at 11:30 at the side entrance of parliament on the Praça da Constituição de 1976, in Lisbon.

The delegation, led by the CAP's president, Álvaro Mendonça e Moura, will hand a document to the President of the Assembleia, José Pedro Aguiar-Branco, and to the parliamentary groups of the PSD, Chega, PS, IL and CDS. It then moves on to São Bento, the Prime Minister's official residence, to deliver the same text to Luís Montenegro's office.

The document is titled "Exigimos condições de competitividade para produzir" ("We demand competitive conditions to produce"). With it the farmers will hand over a symbolic basket of Portuguese food, products that the CAP says could stop being grown in Portugal if the sector's position keeps getting worse. Its member associations represent about 250,000 producers.

Why 140 million euros

The figure was set on 28 September, when the CAP's council of presidents met in Lisbon and voted unanimously to demand an "urgent and immediate" package of 140 million euros in support. The confederation's argument rests on three points:

• Costs: the prices of production inputs, above all fuel and fertiliser, are rising and, in the CAP's words, compromising the economic viability of farms.
• What the state has given so far: the fuel support and the 20 million euros set aside for fertiliser and other inputs "fall clearly short" of what the sector needs, the CAP says.
• Spain: the Spanish government's support to its farmers adds up to 1.1 billion euros, the CAP says, which leaves Portuguese producers at a disadvantage in the same single market.

The confederation also wants the government to use two European instruments that it says Lisbon has left aside: the EU's agricultural crisis reserve, and a reprogramming of the Common Agricultural Policy at national level that allows national top-up funding of up to 200 percent of the EU allocation. It is "unacceptable", the CAP says, for the government to forgo that possibility while farmers pile up losses.

The CAP insists that the 140 million euros must not be confused with aid for the year's weather disasters, such as the EU money for farms hit by Storm Kristin, or with the regular Common Agricultural Policy payments, which have their own purposes and "do not constitute any compensation".

What could come next

When it set the figure in September, the confederation warned that if the sector's minimum competitive conditions were not restored, "concerted protest measures will be inevitable". Monday's action brings together the associations' leaders, and the CAP presents it as the first national mobilisation of its kind.

For households, the confederation's case goes beyond the farm gate: it argues that a weak response will mean Portuguese produce being replaced by imports and a growing dependence on food from abroad. The pressure on input costs is not new; we reported in September that what farmers pay for fertiliser and fuel was rising again, with the bill arriving at the next harvest.