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Date Published: 25/05/2022

ARCHIVED - Greenpeace activists storm Alhama de Murcia factory in macro-farms protest

The demonstrators have broken into the El Pozo headquarters in Alhama de Murcia

<span style='color:#780948'>ARCHIVED</span> - Greenpeace activists storm Alhama de Murcia factory in macro-farms protest

More than 20 Greenpeace activists broke into the headquarters of meat processing company El Pozo in Alhama de Murcia on Tuesday May 24 to demand that the plant publicly support a moratorium on industrial livestock farming.

Protestors scaled the walls to change the company motto to ‘El Pozo kills the environment’ after claiming that it is the business with the most polluting macro-farms in all of Spain.

In a statement, the NGO claimed that “the nitrates from their macro-farms are contaminating the aquifers” and this causes some towns to end up consuming “dirty water”.

Prior to storming the headquarters, Greenpeace reportedly requested a meeting with representatives of El Pozo to ask the company not to open new macro-farms or expand existing ones as “the only effective way to reduce the brutal environmental impact of the brand.” They also requested information about its environmental protection measures, and received a “derisory” response.

“We cannot allow businessmen like Mr. Fuertes, who has a turnover of more than a billion euros a year, to become multimillionaires at the cost of poisoning the water and compromising the health of the planet,” explained Luís Ferreirim, head of the agriculture and livestock campaign of Greenpeace Spain.

“We understand that this facility provides work, and we respect the staff, but the only truth is that there are fewer and fewer farmers in the country, because everything is in the hands of fewer families that raise huge amounts of animals to feed the business of a few”.

According to official reports, the agricultural sector in Spain was the only one that actually increased its emissions in 2020 rather than reducing them, making it the third biggest contributor to climate change, largely due to a jump in emissions from the livestock industry: the agricultural sector is currently responsible for 63% of total methane emissions, 98% of which is generated by livestock.

The number of pigs being raised in Spain has grown by 21.5% in just five years, exceeding 32 million animals in 2020. The situation has reached such a desperate point that the European Commission has taken Spain to the Court of Justice for non-compliance with the Nitrates Directive, which could result in a millionaire fine.

This sanction, according to Greenpeace, will come from the pockets of citizens rather than polluting companies like El Pozo.

Images: Greenpeace

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