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PROTESTS

Will farmers’ protests block Italy’s roads on Friday?

After Italian farmers pledged to drive hundreds of tractors through central Rome this week, can Italy expect road blockades and disruption on the level of that seen in France and Spain?

Published: 8 February 2024 16:48 CET
Updated: 9 February 2024 10:25 CET
Farmers, Rome
A convoy of tractors parked in a field near Rome's Grande Raccordo Anulare as part of a farmers protest over EU agricultural policies. Photo by Andreas SOLARO / AFP

Rome was braced for protests by farmers as the weekend began, with some 1,500 tractors originally slated to take part in demonstrations in the capital beginning on Friday which farmers’ groups said would “definitely” cause widespread disruption.

The protests were planned following a wave of agricultural protests across Europe, with similar demonstrations in Spain leading to a fourth consecutive day of roadblocks on Friday.

READ ALSO: Tractors converge on Rome as farmers protest across Europe

Italian farmers, protesting against EU agricultural policies and high taxation, have also staged a number of small blockades in recent days, converging on Rome with plans for a bigger demonstration in the capital.

The scale of Italian protests so far has been far smaller than that of demonstrations held elsewhere in Europe, where farmers have gone as far as blocking access to airports and bringing traffic in major cities such as Paris and Barcelona to a standstill. 

But could Italy’s tractor protests pick up steam and cause disruption this weekend as promised?

One of the protest groups’ leaders, Danilo Calvani, said last week that he expected “thousands from all over Italy to take part” in the Rome demo and warned that “there definitely will be disruption”.

However, as of Friday morning the event was expected to be much less disruptive than earlier reports had suggested.

After negotiations with Rome’s prefecture (public safety authority), demonstrators on Wednesday agreed that they would not drive hundreds of tractors through central Rome as planned. Nor were they expected to bring the capital’s ring road to a standstill.

Instead, around 1,500 farmers and 10 of the over 500 tractors parked just outside the city were allowed to gather in Rome’s central Piazza San Giovanni at 10am on Friday, according to local media reports.

Some roads in the capital may be temporarily closed on Friday morning to allow the tractors access to and from the square, according to newspaper Il Corriere della Sera.

The event will not include its original procession through Rome’s city centre, with demonstrators expected to be escorted to San Giovanni and back by police.

One protest group announced on Friday that it would hold a tractor protest on the city’s motorway ring road – but not until “around 9pm”.

“We confirm that there will be a procession of tractors on the ring road tonight,” a spokesperson for the Agricultural Redemption group told the Ansa news agency. “Only the time has yet to be established.”

The same group also said on Friday it would drive tractors “freely on the streets of Rome” on Saturday unless granted a meeting with Italy’s agriculture minister Francesco Lollobrigida, Ansa reported.

Elsewhere in the country, a group of farmers had gathered outside of Sanremo, the Ligurian seaside town where Italy’s popular Sanremo Music Festival is underway this week.

The group had demanded to make an appearance at the festival – which is Italy’s biggest televised event – saying if organisers refused their tractors would enter the town.

State broadcaster and festival organiser Rai denied the request on Thursday, saying the show’s host would instead “read a statement that will bring the problems, difficulties, and requests coming from the agricultural world to the attention of the general public”.

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CRIME

Indians march to end ‘slavery’ after worker death shakes Italy

Thousands of Indian farm labourers urged an end to "slavery" in Italy on Tuesday after the gruesome death of a worker shone a light on the brutal exploitation of undocumented migrants.

Published: 26 June 2024 09:00 CEST
Indians march to end 'slavery' after worker death shakes Italy

Satnam Singh, 31, who had been working without legal papers, died last week after his arm was sliced off by a machine. The farmer he was working for dumped him by the road, along with his severed limb.

“He was thrown out like a dog. There is exploitation every day, we suffer it every day, it must end now,” said Gurmukh Singh, head of the Indian community in the Lazio region of central Italy.

“We come here to work, not to die,” he told AFP.

Children held up colourful signs reading “Justice for Satnam Singh” as the procession snaked through Latina, a city in a rural area south of Rome that is home to tens of thousands of Indian migrant workers.

Indians have worked in the Agro Pontino – the Pontine Marshes – since the mid-1980s, harvesting pumpkins, leeks, beans and tomatoes, and working on flower farms or in buffalo mozzarella production.

Singh’s death is being investigated, but it has sparked a wider debate in Italy over how to tackle systemic abuses in the agriculture sector, where use of undocumented workers and their abuse by farmers or gangmasters is rife.

“Satnam died in one day, I die every day. Because I too am a labour victim,” said Parambar Singh, whose eye was seriously hurt in a work accident.

“My boss said he couldn’t take me to hospital because I didn’t have a contract,” said the 33-year-old, who has struggled to work since.

“I have been waiting 10 months for justice,” he said.

Paid a pittance

The workers get paid an average of 20 euros ($21) a day for up to 14 hours labour, according to the Osservatorio Placido Rizzotto, which analyses working conditions in the agriculture industry.

Far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has sought to reduce the number of undocumented migrants to Italy, while increasing pathways for legal migration for non-EU workers to tackle labour shortages.

But according to the Confagricoltura agribusiness association, only around 30 percent of workers given a visa actually travel to Italy, meaning there are never enough labourers to meet farmers’ needs.

This month, Meloni said Italy’s visa system was being exploited by organised crime groups to smuggle in illegal migrants.

She condemned the circumstances of Singh’s death, saying they were “inhumane acts that do not belong to the Italian people”.

“I hope that this barbarism will be harshly punished,” she told her cabinet ministers last week.

Italy’s financial police identified nearly 60,000 undocumented workers from January 2023 to June 2024.

But Italy’s largest trade union CGIL estimates that as many as 230,000 people – over a quarter of the country’s seasonal agricultural workers – do not have a contract.

While some are Italian, most are undocumented foreigners.

Female workers fare particularly badly, earning even less than their male counterparts and in some cases suffering sexual exploitation, it says.

“We all need regular job contracts, not to be trapped in this slavery,” said Kaur Akveer, a 37-year-old who was part of a group of women in colourful saris marching behind the community leaders.

“Satnam was like my brother. He must be the last Indian to die,” she said.

By AFP’s Ella Ide

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