The agreement on pepper purchase prices lasted four days. That is all. After that, buying prices in the Strumica region went back to around 25 denars a kilo, and the factories announced new, lower prices on top of that. So tomorrow, 25 August, at 11:00 outside the regional office of the Ministry of Agriculture in Strumica, a mass farmers' assembly and blockades have been announced.

Departure is set for 10:15, and farmers are being urged to come with agricultural machinery if they can. The organisers stress that this is a peaceful farmers' protest with no party behind it.

The demand that was not met

The most important detail in the whole story is what happened at the meeting where the prices were agreed. The farmers asked for written guarantees that the factories would respect the agreed prices and classifications. They did not get them.

What they got instead was a public promise. According to their statement, when asked how it would be guaranteed that the prices would hold, the minister replied that after the meeting a press conference would be held at which the agreed prices would be announced publicly, and that they would therefore have to be respected.

The press conference took place. The prices lasted four days. The difference between a signature and a statement in front of cameras has shown itself again in its crudest form.

Where the state stops

The farmers say they held off from going public for five days and were in constant contact with the agriculture minister Borce Serafimovski, who mediated the agreement. They reported the situation from the ground promptly and repeatedly, so that someone could step in while there was still something to save. No intervention came.

Their statement says the farmer has been pushed into an organised hunt by a handful of factories that decide his fate, while the state and its institutions stand by as mute observers. The judgement is theirs, but the facts it rests on are verifiable: an agreement with no written guarantee, four days of compliance, and not a single mechanism that kicked in afterwards.

This year, they say, the quality and classification of the pepper delivered by farmers is the highest it has ever been. That did not help in the negotiations, because the negotiations were never about quality.

The farmers are calling on the minister to come back to the same spot in Strumica where nine days ago he made his statement about the deal being done. That is a reasonable request. If his word was worth a press conference, it is worth a second visit - this time without cameras, and with the people waiting to find out whether they will get through the winter at all.