Rabat – Several farmers staged a protest in Algeciras, Spain, to demonstrate against the import of Moroccan agricultural products.
According to the website Europa Sur, some of the protesting farmers held banners accusing Morocco of sending low-quality products to the Spanish market.
Farmers from the 6F platform, which is behind the protest movement targeting Moroccan produce, said their aim is to address the dire situation Spanish agriculture is facing.
“The intention of the protesters is to inspect trucks coming from Morocco to ensure they comply with the requirements set by the European Union,” Europa Sur reported.
Recent weeks have seen several similar protests, a number of which turned into a vandalism campaign targeting Moroccan trucks and products.
Several videos show farmers involved in setting foreign trucks on fire and destroying the produce they were carrying, including dozens of tomato batches.
Some farmers described their behavior as much-needed action against what they perceive as “unfair competition” from non-EU countries.
The ongoing vandalism campaigns targeting Moroccan produce have sparked concerns among exporters, many of whom have compared the acts to Red Sea attacks by the Houthis.
“I don’t see any difference between what’s happening in Europe now and the attacks by Houthi pirates in the Red Sea,”’ exporter Oussama Machi told the agriculture-focused news outlet FreshPlaza.
Such a violent campaign mainly affects exporters, Machi said, noting that neither the “transporters nor the insurance companies take any responsibility.”
The Moroccan Confederation of Agriculture and Rural Development (COMADER) has strongly condemned the attacks on Moroccan produce, describing them as “baseless.”
COMADER also emphasized the good quality of Moroccan produce, emphasizing that the country’s agricultural exports are strictly in line with all legal standards.
