It occupies a discreet place on Cope's grill and does not appear on promotional posters next to the best-known faces in the chain. But César Lumbreras is, like Carlos Herrera or Paco González , a star. In his field, the rural area is also the number one and its program, Agropopular , is part of the history of Spanish radio as it has been the longest on the air with the same presenter.
It's already 35 years broadcasting every Saturday of the year. All, all but two. Only the Pope has left him at home. He himself counts: "52 programs for 35 years are 1,820, to which we must add ten from July 28 - date of the first broadcast, in 1984 - and subtract the two we did not do because they coincided with acts related to visits of the Pope to Spain. Put 1.828, one above or one below. "
Agropopular sounds in the car of the farmer who is going to feed his cows and in the kitchen of the family who has a quiet breakfast in any city in Spain. In the cold of an olive harvest morning or in the heat of a Saturday bed . How do you get that? Knowing where you are and who you are going to: "From the beginning I was clear that we had to convey useful information for farmers and ranchers, but we had to do it in such a way that we did not bore the listener of Cope that in principle has nothing to do with the field ".
Complying with this every week allows us to present galactic audience data: 805,000 listeners according to the latest General Media Study - the fourth program of the most listened to station after Herrera in Cope, Playtime and Lantern - that almost triples, for example, those of El Transistor by José Ramón de la Morena in Onda Cero.
"The minister who goes beyond what Lumbreras says is wrong; for 99% of the farmers what he says is the Gospel," says another heavyweight from the Spanish countryside, Pedro Barato , president of ASAJA (Agricultural Association Young Farmers). Lighter, the water.
Neither audience data - nor the consequent influence - alters Lumbreras. In fact, it does not take it too much into account since, according to its method, the program has only 725,000, the average of the last six waves of the EGM. "Spaces that are broadcast only one day and on the weekend give ups and downs having done the same, so I work with the average and I don't go crazy," he explains.
Another mechanism to keep the feet on the ground is to admit that a percentage of the audience is due to the "drag effect" from which the whole chain benefits "thanks to Herrera and Sports." For César Lumbreras, a station "works like a car with two engines, which are" the morning program and sports. "If these" throw ", continues," the rest, we are the wheels or shock absorbers, we are going best; they send force to others. "
Brussels and ministers
Agropopular maintains, to the pride of its creator, the same "spine" as the day of the premiere. The transformation of the Spanish countryside has counted it for three and a half decades essentially through three fixed sections: the weather forecast, the market comment with the price variations of seasonal products and the Brussels chronicle . It will be 35 or 200 years that the farmer will continue to face the same problems and will always have one eye on the sky and another in his pocket. Or in heaven and in Brussels, which is the same.
César Lumbreras knows as few in Spain the complicated network of corridors and offices in which the policies that will be carried out in the agricultural and livestock extensions of the 28 countries that currently form the EU are decided. The journalist recalls that negotiation in the mid-80s for the entry of Spain into what was then the European Economic Community in which "failures were chained and nobody thought we could enter."
In the matter of the field, at the head of the conversations prior to the signing of the Accession Treaty was Minister Carlos Romero , of whom Lumbreras does not keep a good memory: "The agricultural was the end in the negotiation and had to sign the that imposed, something that hurt a lot, especially the dairy sector. "
From Romero to Luis Planas , the current one, there are 12 ministers who repeat their careers in chronological order. If asked to order by merit, it indicates "on one side: Pedro Solbes and Miguel Arias Cañete ". Both "knew how things move in the EU" and had "political weight" in their respective governments, so they had the ability to negotiate strongly, for example, Budgets with the Ministry of Finance.
None of these qualities brings together, in the opinion of César Lumbreras, Luis Planas, a Minister of Agriculture who is more "a professional politician" - lists without a doubt and without fail all his positions since he was elected deputy in 1982 - than a country man although "he has an olive grove" and he is "disappeared": "This is not what I say: according to the CIS, he is the least known minister and the worst valued by the Spaniards . "
Agropopular is not the only radio program dedicated to agricultural issues. In fact, on Saturday morning, spaces are broadcast on Onda Cero, esRadio and Radio Nacional, but the three go ahead to avoid competing directly with the journalist who most influences the Spanish countryside.
"We have an important weight in the sector, that the ministers wanted to get along with me is logical," admits Lumbreras aware that his opinions on the air are capable of conditioning political decisions but from there to remove and put ministers goes a bit: " Powerful me? That is something else . The command is controlled by the BOE. Journalists can feel influential but not powerful. If at some point it had been some ministers would have lasted me nothing. "
Even so, Pedro Barato , from ASAJA, ensures that the contents of the program in which he now participates from time to time are "analyzed and commented" in his work meetings in the same way that they marked the talk in the town more than 30 years. "So we were skeptical, we didn't believe in anything," he says. "Agropopular opened many minds, it made us understand how important Brussels was. Its work to boost rural areas has been very important and decisive in creating truthful opinions."
Realism and depopulation animalism
While Lumbreras poses with his animals for this report, the farmer Jorge Izquierdo recalls the first times he heard the voice of this "idol" on the radio: "His program was something new, nobody talked about livestock. I listened to him when we went up to separate sheep to the Sierra, it would be 1985, and I was very pissed off when I couldn't hear meat prices because of the interference. "
Izquierdo, owner of hundreds of heads of cattle and sheep and promoter of Lechal Colmenar, believes that Agropopular served to open a window to "the problems of the field" and establish a "means of communication" between farmers in different areas of Spain. "Lumbreras has power because it has information , and what it does is disseminate it," he concludes.
Around 300 sheep graze with their owner outside the conversation. They do not live overcrowded on a farm but in a state of semi-freedom from which we all benefit: in addition to taking advantage of their wool, milk and meat, the sheep while feeding cleans the mountain and prevents forest fires.
The flock is next to the Autonomous University of Madrid, just 10 minutes from Plaza de Castilla. Lumbreras reflects: "The people of the city live with their backs to the rural environment and there are many more points of union than it seems . We all eat several times a day, where do these foods come from? Agriculture, livestock and fishing. In addition, those who live in the countryside also take care of it so that the urbanite can enjoy it on weekends. "
The term "empty or emptied Spain" makes it funny for having been "created from the urban environment" by those who could "set an example and register in their town". "People want to live in cities, it is a global trend, to fight against that ..." he laments.
For the director of Agropopular, the field has a "serious image problem" of which "he is not aware" and proposes, as a beginning to reverse the situation, "to send messages in positive and not in negative", as is usually the case.
"The agri-food sector must explain to society that it performs a production task complying with the most demanding regulations in the world and contributing, like no other, to counteract the effects of climate change," suggests Lumbreras, who makes a point aimed at true animalists : "Farmers have to put in value that they are the first ones interested in the welfare of their animals, they are the ones who really take care of them and protect them and not those who in the name of an alleged animalism are dedicated to assault farms."
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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