Oviedo, 1 October 2026 – More than a hundred livestock farmers from eastern Asturias staged a protest on Thursday outside the headquarters of the presidency of the Gobierno del Principado in Oviedo against rising operating costs and wolf attacks . According to the organisers, the aim of the demonstration was to prompt the regional government to act swiftly and to demand a “dignified future” for rural areas.
The demonstration was supported by the Unión Rural Asturiana (URA). Spokespeople for the association said that the economic situation of many farms was “no longer sustainable”. Two farmers, Esteban Martínez and Miguel Madiedo, had joined the protest with a multi-day march from the east of the region to Oviedo. Participants left cowbells, manure and an animal carcass outside the building as a symbolic gesture.
The protesters asked to meet the regional president Adrián Barbón. According to the press office, he was on an overseas trip at the time of the demonstration and was unavailable. The URA instead pressed for a meeting with the regional minister Marcelino Marcos; according to participants, no meeting was arranged. In speeches, livestock farmers warned of a downward spiral of falling milk prices, rising feed and energy costs, and increasing wolf attacks that threatened livelihoods and hollowed out local communities.
The action is part of a series of mobilisations that have shaped Asturias’s rural sector for months. Agricultural associations criticise delays in compensation payments, inadequate compensation for wolf attacks and unclear responsibilities for wolf management. There are also tensions within the sector; not all organisations take part in the same forms of protest or call for identical measures. Politically, expectations are directed above all at the autonomous authorities, which decide on subsidies, compensation rules and interventions in the populations of large predators.
The regional government had made no specific commitments by Thursday. Government sources said they were monitoring the situation and considering further steps. Whether and when talks between the Gobierno del Principado and representatives of the Unión Rural Asturiana will take place remained unclear. The organisers said they would continue their mobilisation if there were no tangible signs of progress in the short term. Some participants referred in their speeches to possible supply shortages; there was no reliable official indication of this by the time of publication.
Editor: Mira Cadena (Article created with AI assistance).