Farmers to converge on Bratislava on tractors

Protesting farmers from across Slovakia are expected to converge on Bratislava to voice their unhappiness with the state of agriculture later on Tuesday, although original plans to drive more than 960 tractors to the capital city were scrapped in favour of just 100 agricultural machines. Small and medium farmers associated with the Farmers' Initiative want to express their disapproval with the unchanged situation in the Slovak agricultural sector, where they claim they are oppressed by large agribusinesses and massive corruption. On Wednesday (February 20), the farmers plan to meet representatives of the Interior Ministry and Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry, and to discuss the situation faced by small farmers. Most of the farmers will gather at the Tyršovo Embankment in Bratislava's borough of Petržalka, although some of them will be protesting elsewhere.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development continues to regard the activities of the Farmers' Initiative association as an election campaign of party activists, and will not comment on it. The ministry's spokesman Michal Feik said this in response to the question of whether Agriculture Minister Gabriela Matečna (SNS) plans to participate on Wednesday in the meeting with the Farmers's Initiative, to which the association invited the government in Bratislava during their protests. According to the Feik, the Agriculture Ministry is in continuous talks with the representatives of relevant agricultural and food industry self-governing bodies.