Accompanied by students farmers all over Serbia are coming to the big protest that was announced in Belgrade on Saturday, March 15. In the meantime, information appeared that allegedly Andrej Vučić is recruiting farmers to they block with tractors approaching Belgrade.
There was also information that about 70 tractors of farmers close to the ruling party were already parked in the IMT.
Mileta Slankamenac from the Initiative for the Survival of Serbian Farmers told "Vreme" that the farmers started reporting to them that some tractors were being loaded onto the trucks and that they then sent them away.
"First they were at Altina in Zemun, and now they are in some old IMT halls, and we know about it," says Slankamenac.
"What is our comment on that?" Well, we don't know. What are driverless tractors for and what is their role? They are not a problem for us. Farmers have already left Rača and Mackva accompanied by students. We are leaving these days - one group tomorrow morning, another group on Friday morning. So we will continue as we have been going so far, accompanied by students".
Tractors come from all directions
Slankamenac explains that they are going from Novi Sad towards Pazova on the old road to Beorgad, and that they will spend the night there. And that they already have close to 2000 people looking for accommodation.
As for the number of tractors that will depart from Novi Sad, the interlocutor of "Vremena" states that it is at least 50 tractors, and that they will join from Pazova, Kuzmin, Krčedin and so on.
"So we don't know exactly how many tractors will go from this direction." Additionally, they will go from Banat, those who will not sleep with us in Pazova should also come. So, for us, that number of 70 tractors (in IMT) is not much," says Slankamenac.
Image VS. reality
Recently, farmers in Bogatić went to a fair where they wanted to show how they really cultivate the land. The most modern tillage machines were presented at the fair.
Slankamenac says that it actually showed that reality is one thing, and something that is shown on television on some agricultural shows is something completely different.
"I don't know in what percentage, but I believe that the percentage of farmers who have navigation on their tractors is in the single digits, and we are talking about the digitization of agriculture," he states.
He goes on to say that these are farmers who passed national competitions, who have "these fictitious farms, who have these fictitious cows and who knows what else." We have been warning for the last three years that it must be fixed. Now it is obvious why it is not fixed. When the institutions start doing their work, when the inspections start, as far as these associations that were in protest are concerned, our members will not have any problems with that".
Slankamenac concludes that they have been protesting for three years, the students for four months, and that there were no problems, so he sees no reason why there would be any on Saturday.
