Agriculturists of Serbia to Begin Road Blocks Today Until Requests Are Fulfilled

Today, in several cities of Vojvodina and central Serbia, agriculturists will block roads with machinery until their requests are met, said Djoka Curcic, a representative of the Initiative for the Survival of Agriculturists of Serbia.

He said for the Beta news agency that the coordinators of several agriculturists’ associations agreed the night before to start blocking roads in Subotica, Novi Sad, Pozarevac, Pancevo and Bogatic with tractors that morning and added that road blocks in cities of central Serbia were being considered as well.

– Road blocks will begin in the morning and last for several hours a day until the requests are met – Curcic said.

He said that the offer, made after their announcement of the protests, to come to have talks at the Presidency, had not been considered and that it would not be considered.

Curcic said that the agriculturists who had protested the day before, led by the Initiative for the Survival of Agriculturists of Serbia, believed, unlike several livestock farmers’ associations, that the prime minister of Serbia, Ana Brnabic, and not the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, was in charge of meeting the requests.

The agriculturists are requesting subsidies per hectare of EUR 300, a guaranteed milk price of RSD 75 without the VAT, diesel fuel at a price which doesn’t include excise taxes and the VAT, and a subsidy per cow of RSD 40,000 instead of RSD 30,000.

All the requests were rejected this Monday by Brnabic, who said that they should be patient and that the matter could be discussed the next year.

Inicijativa za opstanak poljoprivrednika Srbije

Initiative for the Survival of Agriculturists of Serbia

Đoka Ćurčić

Aleksandar Vučić

agriculturists protests

guaranteed price of milk

subsidies per hectare

subsidies per cow