Farmers in Torrox yesterday handed out 10,000 kilos of horticultural produce, mainly cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes, in front of a supermarket frequented by many of the numerous German residents of the town, a deliberate ploy to convey their annoyance with the German government over the handling of the E.coli outbreak.
Torrox has a large Germanic population, some 6,000 in total. The protest was organised by the Town Hall and the Asociación de Comerciantes y Empresarios de Torrox (Asecot) and a supermarket frequented by many Germans was chosen so that they could convey to their fellow countrymen that the German government was negligent and wrong to blame Spanish produce for the E.coli outbreak in Germany.
The Councillor for Agriculture, José Pérez (PSA), called on Germany to accept responsibility for the losses suffered by Spanish farmers as a result of their ban on Spanish produce.