SDSM and Levica back farmers' protest near Topolchani

SDSM and the leftist party Levica have publicly backed a farmers' protest scheduled for today at 11:00 on the Prilep–Bitola road near the village of Topolchani, urging the government to support proposed legal changes that would provide direct financial aid to farmers and livestock breeders.

Parties push for direct payments

SDSM says it has for months been warning about the situation in agriculture and livestock farming, citing producers' dissatisfaction over low purchase prices for wheat and milk and unpaid subsidies. The party accuses the authorities of pursuing “wrong and criminal policies” that have deepened the crisis.

Party representatives said they are not offering only symbolic backing but have submitted legislative amendments in Parliament that would establish direct financial assistance to farmers and livestock breeders, and they called on the government to support that bill.

Levica urged Minister of Agriculture Borche Serafimovski to attend the protest so he could face producers directly and hear their demands. In a written statement the party said: "This is the voice of the producers who for years have borne the burden of a wrongly set agricultural policy in which the state has resources and instruments when it needs to save the liquidity of the more powerful, but for the producer there is always a new 'it will be'."

Levica also challenged the minister's readiness to confront the farmers: "If he has courage, let him come out before them, let him look them in the eye and explain how they are supposed to survive with purchase prices below the production cost, with unpaid subsidies and with crops rotting in their fields or herds dying of disease," the party added.

Organizers described the gathering as an expression of protest and a fight for the rights, work and future of agricultural producers, and announced that the assembly will be peaceful and dignified.

Photo: press material from the event