EHNE-Navarra renews its executive and claims a sector of "5,000 farmers"

EHNE-Navarra has renewed its leadership on Saturday at the 8th Congressheld at thePalace of the Condestable  inPamplona under the slogan "5,000 yes." The Union  has claimed the model based on family farms and warned thatmore and moreland and production are falling into the hands of large business groups.

The union has re-elected Itoitz farmer Fermín Gorraiz as president and appointed Azpirotzbeekeeper Felipe Etxetxikia  as general secretary, with the aim of meeting the challenges facing the Navarre agricultural sector in the coming years.

Together with these two leaders, Leire Etxeberria, Beñat Agorreta, Diego Alonso, Gabriel Juvera, Martín Iribarren and Ramón Mateo form the new leadership, representatives linked to various productive areas and territories of Navarre.

In addition, the EHNE-Navarra has adopted its organizational and agricultural policy reports , reiterating the need to limit the defence of a model of family agriculture and livestock farming, food sovereignty and the size of farms and the distribution of public aid .

In their final speech, Gorraiz and Etxetxikia defended the congress's slogan as a strategic aspiration to ensure the future of the sector: "We want to claim that Navarre has 5,000 farmers and ranchers, because that will mean that the primary sector will remain alive in our territory."

Trade union leaders have also warned of what they have described as the "uberization of the area", the growing presence of multinationals and investment funds, "through land grabbing and the promotion of macrofarms to achieve a monopoly on the agri-food market". In the face of this, "they will always have before them the EHNE-Navarro," they have proclaimed.

The union has also called for public measures to ensure that the population stays in rural areas, to encourage the transformation and marketing of small producers and to further develop the Food Chain Act.