On Monday, a group of farmers held talks with Moldovan President Maia Sandu, but the parties failed to reach an agreement. The protesters are demanding that the Moldovan government introduce a penalty moratorium for debt against grain producers and increase financial support for the agricultural sector, badly affected by last year's drought and falling grain prices. Sandu recommended that the protesters return to dialogue with the government.
"We have not heard any specific arguments from the president either in our support or on the situation in agriculture in general. As far as we understand, the authorities do not have an alternative proposal to urgently save micro-, small- and medium-sized farming enterprises from bankruptcy, so we have decided to continue our protests by moving our machinery to the streets of Kishinev," the head of the Farmers' Force association, Alexandru Slusari, told reporters.
The protesters moved their tractors past the buildings of the presidential administration and the Moldovan parliament, dropping a sack of manure in front of it.
"We have questions for the government of our republic and specifically for the president. Yesterday, our colleagues were invited to meet with her, and today we saw on the presidential website that Maia Sandu had also met with grain producers. But agriculture is not only about grain. We have brought fruit and other products here. And we are also giving her this sack of manure in protest against the arbitrariness of the authorities and their abuse of the peasants," farmer Sergey Stefanko said at the rally.
In October, the Moldovan president spoke in favor of transiting Ukrainian grain to Europe through the republic's territory as part of the EU-Ukraine Solidarity Lanes initiative. In September, Kishinev and Kiev also agreed to extend the liberalization of cargo transportation until the end of 2025.
On September 15, the European Commission decided not to extend restrictions on Ukrainian agricultural imports, but still obligated Kiev to introduce export control measures. Poland, Hungary and Slovakia responded by unilaterally extending the ban at the national level.