Revolting wheat farmers still on roads

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Wheat growers continued to keep the island’s road junctions hostage Friday, as tractors brought traffic to a standstill, saying the government’s subsidy offer fell CYP 3 mln short of their demands for CYP 5 mln.

Police failed to clear the roads at the Larnaca roundabout just off the highway and at the Nisou turnoff on the Nicosia – Limassol highway as some wheat growers even hid the keys of their tractors. No farmers have been arrested.

Previously Agriculture Minister Timis Efthymiou had stated that the Ministry could not offer more than CYP 2 mln because the government would be going against EU legislation.

“We are obliged to operate under EU laws and that is what we will do. Otherwise we risk being penalised. After strenuous efforts we were able to offer a maximum subsidy of CYP 2 mln to the wheat growers,” he said.

“Instead of compromising their demands as they said they would do last week, they insisted on their demand of CYP 5 per hectare.”

The head of the wheat growers Andreas Theophanous told state radio, “we requested from the Minister to examine the hectares on our fields and calculate how much they are worth. Unfortunately, the Ministry is being dishonest and not telling us the correct worth of the hectares.

Theophanous added that the farmers would not budge from where they are until their demands were met and called on the Minister to finally put an end to the ordeal.

Police spokesman Demetris Demetriou told the Cyprus Mail that road blocks made by the wheat growers caused big traffic problems on roads around the island.

“The blocking off of the roads caused serious problems to traffic, with some cars stuck in traffic for hours and complaints have obviously been flooding in. We were negotiating continuously with the farmers so they could reopen the roads. No incidents were reported during the night.”