Farmers threaten protests if the government doesn't take action against rabbits, wild boars, and roe deer.

Lleida"The Generalitat is a mess." This is how the president stated this Tuesday. representative of Unió de Pagesos in the Territorial Hunting Council of LleidaRamon Comes, to denounce that farmers are receiving little help to deal with attacks by rabbits, wild boars, and roe deer. Comes asserts that neither the Department of Agriculture nor the Department of the Interior are providing the tools they had promised to combat the devastation of fruit trees, vineyards, and cereal crops caused by the overpopulation of wildlife. "We don't want to exterminate, we want to balance. The imbalance between farmers and wildlife is increasingly significant," he added. If this doesn't happen, Comes warned, "there will be consequences on the streets" in the form of protests.

The hunting emergency, declared on March 30, 2023, It included the hiring of personnel by the administration to act where hunting grounds were not covered, as well as nighttime operations, in addition to authorizing farmers and hunters to hunt with night vision goggles and special calibers. Although the emergency ended administratively on April 30 of that year, the Government promised that it would remain active through Decree Law 5/2024.

According to agricultural organizations, however, not even the Population Control Plan (PCP) recently promised by the Regional Minister of Agriculture, Òscar Ordeig, has been implemented. "We continue to have serious problems: they are eating away at our fields, endangering our herds, and causing traffic accidents," argues Joan Guitart, head of Game Fauna at Unió de Pagesos, referring to wildlife.

For farmers, the main bone of contention is the total disappearance of rural agents because the hunting emergency has expired. The force, under the orders of the Department of the Interior, operated in the captures alongside hunting associations and farmers themselves. "Now they no longer intervene, and the vehicles they used have even been taken away," say the unions, who are demanding the resumption of activity.

More captures and more affected plots

In the first quarter of this year alone, the government recorded up to 26,694 rabbit captures, more than triple the number in the previous period. And the Government's Territorial Services in Lleida recorded up to 2,067 plots of land that reported crop damage during the first quarter of this year, a figure five times higher than the 418 reported in the last quarter of 2024. "Even President Isla assured us that wildlife was a national problem, but he is not acting," said Néstor Serra.

According to sources from the agricultural union Young Farmers and Ranchers of Catalonia (JARC), the situation is "critical": "Three-quarters of the damage recorded in the agricultural sector is due to wildlife, a problem that not only affects crops but also represents a significant health risk for the livestock."

That's why, together with the Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives of Catalonia (FCAC), the entity sent a document to Minister Ordeig demanding more financial compensation and aid, more wildlife control plans, the authorization of the use of silencers on weapons and, above all, the promotion of aluminum phosphide, the controversial biofuel.