Sunday, November 8, 2009

John Deere

After two days at sea we need some solid land under our feet, but this is probably the last thing you would have expected today! A column of John Deeres parked opposite the “Fortezza Vecchia”.
This is part of a day of protest by the Tuscan farmers against the crisis in the agriculture sector.The head of the statue of Gran Duke Ferdinando I, on top of the Four Moors monument, is visible in the middle of the last photo.

20 comments:

brattcat said...

I hope someone is listening to the farmers!

Lowell said...

Some fine-looking machines there, VP. What's the crisis?

Leif Hagen said...

Surprising to see BIG John Deeres in Livorno! My father loves John Deere - I think he wanted to be buried with his John Deere lawn tractor!

Clueless in Boston said...

That must be quite a sight seeing all those big farm trucks protesting.

Gunn said...

Just outside Stavanger farmers kids drive huge tractors to school when they are 16 years old! (Here you have to be 18 to drive a car.) Anyway, I got surprised to see your photos today. I hope the farmers were heard, not only seen by the public and those who "run" your city!

stromsjo said...

Oh Deere!

Kaori said...

We rarely have protests here, so I'm always interested in the creative ways people make statements! But ofcourse I hope they will soon not have any reason to protest.

cieldequimper said...

Though I love tractors (driving one is a childhood dream), I'll stay at sea...
I like the way your farmers protest. Here they usually BLOCK streets and roads, put fire to supermarkets or better still, spill hectolitres of milk onto the pavement.

Three Rivers, Michigan said...

This looks very festive for a protest. It's a good statement, though, since city people sometimes forget what is going on out in the countryside. I hope the politicians noticed all these big machines driving about!

Nice photos, too. I especially liked the bottom one, comparing the car with the size of the long line of trucks.

Three Rivers Daily Photo

amatamari© said...

Impressionanti e bellissimi!

VP said...

This one was a quite sober protest, only some wheat was spilled. Few years ago, in Northern Italy, much worse fluids than milk were pumped by angry farmers on the police!

Copenhagen said...

United they stand!

Stefan Jansson said...

You should be glad they don't protest like the French farmers.

Ilse said...

We might see John Deere trucks. But I could hardly imagine that farmers would be permitted to drive them into a city to protest. I can hardly imagine a protest here. A few. But very rarely.

Hilda said...

I've heard about the French farmers' protest but this is the first I've heard about Italian farmers. Do they have similar problems about prices?

I'm glad to hear that they didn't waste much food.

Mary Stebbins Taitt said...

Weird to see that there!! Strange!!

tapirgal said...

No, I would not expect this. Its hard to imagine even with the photo!

Unknown said...

We've had such parades of tractors in Ottawa, too.

Cezar and Léia said...

Here in Luxembourg they did a kind of this protest as well.
My daughter did not go to school that day because the school was closed.
Léia

Andreea said...

Looks like the protests are spreading in Europe. Last week it happened in Bucharest too.