“True things, friend Sancho” is an expression attributed to Don Quixote, although apparently wrongly, to express perplexity or surprise at an unexpected event. Well, some similar expression must be used among the people of the nationalist left when observing the turn taken by their leaders before the project to install a wind farm in the Azpeitia area by the Norwegian company Statkraft.
Where before they saw horrendous windmills that would raze the mountains and ventilate the winds of evil capitalist ultraliberalism, now, immersed in a full Copernical turn with the aim of reaching the fluffy carpets of the institutions, they see nothing more than a few light and light little sticks that will make the graciously the mountain breezes, and all this by the hand of a Norwegian NGO that, in the section of humility, spirituality and common good, leaves the Franciscans of Aran-tzazu at the height of the mud.
“True things, friend Arnaldo”, mutters a seasoned member of the Basque nationalist left from the Urola region as he takes on the millstones he had to swallow, without batting an eyelid, at least when he appears publicly before those co-religionists whom he even Now he had cheered to make banners against any project that dared to touch the sacred and iconic mountain.
Mill wheels of the same size are, on the other hand, the affirmations of numerous purchasing managers of dairy industries to some farmers that, in order to justify the rise in spot milk, milk at auction, the message is conveyed to them that everyone, including industrial and distribution chains, have realized the agonizing moment that farmers are experiencing and, therefore, have decided to lift their foot on the accelerator and improve the price for farmers.
The farmer, however, like the wise Sancho, is well aware of the characters that swarm the dairy sector and knows for sure that the improvement in prices is not due to the pity he gives his buyers or due to a sudden solidarity towards them, but because of the lack of milk in the market after years of squeezing and mistreating the farmer until he was exhausted.
The patience of the farmer, like everyone else, has a limit and exceeding it has been reason enough for farmers to throw in the towel, some little by little, sending inefficient dairy cows to the meat market, and a few others closing the door abruptly and definitively.
Now that prices for farmers are improving, there are those who earn money, apparently something prohibited to producers and only allowed for other links, we should not lose sight of reality since the vast majority are those who either just just cover costs of production, or else, the majority continue to lose money.
Now, do not think that this situation is something exclusive to the dairy sector, it occurs in other productive subsectors, as a few days ago recognized representatives of chicken farmers who, behind closed doors, admitted that they were working at a loss, or pig or egg producers, some not so far away, who are forced to work at a loss as they are unable to pass on their costs to the next link in the chain.
By the way, speaking of the chain, they will not deny me that for the millstone we already have that of Minister Luis Planas, who reformed a Food Chain Law introducing the clause by which, in each and every one of the sales within the chain, it had to be guaranteed that the production costs of each of its links were covered. We have had more than enough time with this law to realize that what was sold to us as the holy remedy for the injustices of the agricultural market, unfortunately, is nothing more than a gigantic mill wheel.
The primary sector, like society as a whole, in these moments of anxiety and uncertainty, needs leaders who know how to combine the great objectives of the medium-long term with the effective and efficient management of the short term.
We don’t need charlatans, hair-growth sellers, or surfers from the latest wave to come down the coast. We need leaders who set goals, implement strategies, know how to work in a group and, when it is necessary to do so, put aside the perennial smile and know how to tell us the boatman’s truths, no matter how uncomfortable they may be for us.
The primary sector, including its associations, cooperatives and companies, as well as the institutions, starting from the closest to the most distant, need leaders like air, or leaders, and not little leaders without a project who go from one place to another, aimlessly, as the leaves go with the wind or that they settle for managing inertia.