Farmers in Spain are staging a major protest in Madrid calling for better prices for their products and changes in European agricultural policy. Some scuffled with police as tractors blockaded the city center disrupting traffic. Our correspondent Ken Brown has more. #farmers #protests #agriculture
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00:00 Thousands of farmers on the streets of Madrid today answering union calls to
00:06 create a historic protest in the country's capital. Eight to nine hundred
00:11 tractors have blocked up the center of the city here. They're trying to make
00:14 their way down to the agriculture ministry not far from here. They've been
00:19 angered by the police stopping them on the periphery of Madrid. Finally most of
00:24 them have made it this far. They've come from as far afield as the Basque country
00:29 in the north and the Lucia in the south, Aragon. We've heard Catalan being spoken.
00:34 Also farmers here tell us that their livelihoods are at risk. They say that
00:39 soaring costs and lowering plummeting prices for their produce is putting them
00:46 in a desperate situation. The average salary for agricultural workers here in
00:51 Spain is at around $1,500 per month which isn't very far off the minimum
00:58 wage. They say that they want their work, they want their produce to be better
01:02 valued by society, by government and by Brussels.