Farmers block Mexico’s Congress with tractors in protest against new national water law proposal

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Dozens of farmers drove their tractors in a caravan to Mexico City and blocked an entrance to Mexico’s Congress on Wednesday to protest a new national water law that imposes stricter controls on water use.

The farmers amassed outside the congressional chamber to protest the General Water Law proposal, which they say will take water away from the countryside and re-allocate it for discretionary use. They say the proposal threatens their livelihoods and chips away at their fundamental right to water.

“If it affects the countryside, it affects the city!” read a banner hanging from two tractors.

“We are protesting against the imposition by the federal government of a new water law, a reform that puts at risk the ownership of our lands,” said Jorge Robles, a farmer from the northern state of Chihuahua.

The proposal backed by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is being discussed in the Chamber of Deputies, where the president’s Morena Party has a majority. The law aims for the federal government to impose stricter penalties for water-related crimes and regulate water concessions — a sector plagued by high-profile corruption cases.

The farmers brought their demonstrations to the country’s capital less than a week after they and groups of truck drivers lifted road and highway blockades in at least seven of the country’s 32 states. They were protesting the new water law and insecurity on the country’s highways, and demanding increases in corn and wheat prices.

They lifted the blockades after reaching an agreement with the federal government to address their demands but agricultural leaders warned that they were prepared to escalate their protests if the proposal advances in Congress.