Eva Lizama, 'agro-millennial', in the midst of the tractor crisis: "We are less guilty of climate change than those who take a plane for two days"
With the first rays of daylight, María Victoria Fernández begins to work on her farm, feeding her hundred cows.
She finishes around midnight, after completing the multiple
bureaucratic load
that is required of the sector in front of the computer.
Surrounded by three dogs that play between her legs, María Victoria (27 years old, Malpartida de Cáceres) receives Yo Dona on her family farm, La Corte del cochino, of
310 hectares
and located in the heart of the Sierra de San Pedro, in the municipal area of Puebla de Obando.
He addresses the three by name: 'Zorro', 'Rocky' and 'Partridge', but he assures that he could do the same with the hundred cows - of Limousin, Charolais and Retinta breeds - on his property, which he loves. and takes care of them as if they were her own daughters.
There is no doubt that he is able to identify them one by one and the passion for the animals of this ranch is obvious, which also has chickens and up to three bulls - "tame", he clarifies - to ensure the continuity of production.
He has also baptized them, "because they are like my pets": 'JR';
'Mocho' and 'John Deere', as well as a calf that he is crazy about, 'Figueira'.
The long day
Until next May it is
mating season,
so María Victoria has an intense workload: she must avoid collisions between the specimens in this continuous cycle of heat that lasts several months.
She has been at work for several hours now, because work starts very early.
"In the countryside everything begins and ends with sunrise and sunset," she describes.
The rancher on her tractor, recently purchased, with one of her three dogs.DAVID VIGARIO
The first thing he does when he gets up is feed the cows.
From there "it doesn't stop, there are always things to do."
Then it will be his turn to carry the heavy bags of feed and prepare bottles for the calves that have been delicate in recent weeks.
Then
pruning, plowing, fertilizing the land...
and when night falls comes the most uncomfortable aspect: getting in front of a computer to complete the "excessive bureaucracy."
More than an hour each day in front of the laptop filling out documents, requesting permission from the administrations for the treatment of the pasture, veterinary prescriptions, aid processes, ear tag sheets, filling out the CAP... and a continuous obligation: completing the reviled
'digital notebook',
a kind of detailed diary where each activity of each day is recorded in detail.
A mountain of paperwork that the sector complains bitterly about.
For all this, she has the indispensable help of Javi, her trusted cowboy, who has been working on the farm all his life, the right hand of her father, Julio Fernández-Trejo, and now of her: "Without him I would have a heart attack." "he describes.
Training journalist
Graduated in Journalism from the Pontifical University of Salamanca, and after a brief stay in Madrid to complete her audiovisual training, María Victoria decided during the hardest phase of the pandemic that she was going to dedicate herself to the field.
"I came to the farm and I didn't want to return, I was clear,
I didn't want to return to Madrid,"
she confesses.
María Victoria next to straw bales.DAVID VIGARIO
Her love for the countryside is the 'fault' of her father, who instilled it in both her and her sister (Fátima, 29 years old, a veterinarian who is now preparing for competitive exams) from a very young age.
Nearing her retirement, he also visits the farm daily.
All his hands are few.
"He brought us as children every weekend to the farm to feed the cows while my friends stayed in town... and then, the entire summer;
my father got us hooked."
By then, the father managed to accumulate up to 600 sheep, 200 cows and even horses.
They also had pigs.
"I would like to recover all those activities one day, but we are going little by little," confesses María Victoria, who is grateful to her father for inducing her to "make a career."
María Victoria had always had a fascination with cinema and chose to study Journalism: "I liked to write, but the Degree was not what I thought and I became discouraged...", although she regularly collaborates with a livestock magazine to 'kill the worm', taking time from where there is none.
Until midnight
Most days he closes the farm gates around midnight, although he does not complain about his life, on the contrary, and admits that he is immensely happy, despite listening to his father's old refrain about the everlasting situation of the countryside. : "We are in crisis, this is ruin", a sound that she believed was an exaggeration, but which she came face to face with two years ago: "It was
absolute ruin,
with a great drought that lasted throughout the campaign following".
She even felt "like crying, and I was not yet in charge of the economic issues of the farm...".
Then, she verified that droughts "are cyclical."
Now, this campaign is about to breathe a sigh of relief after the first few months of the year with abundant rain.
Time to load the bags of feed. DAVID VIGARIO
"The average age of the Spanish farmer is 62 years," explains the rancher, which demonstrates the problems of generational change.
She took an online incorporation course during Covid, but specifies that she really learned the trade on the field "At some points I did notice that some were surprised by the presence of a woman in the field, I have also heard some comments... ., but fortunately those things have already been happening."
In fact, in the tractor rally organized in Cáceres a week ago, she became the pole of attraction by marching with a tractor that she labeled with a successful slogan: "Europe bites the hand that feeds it."
She explains it:
"I think I have the best job in the world,
the most valuable, the one that serves to feed the population, but they make it very difficult for us to do so."
Hard work on the computer
He refers to the "horrible" bureaucracy that the sector endures: "We need things to be simplified" and gives as an example the famous 'digital notebook' "that we have to fill out daily in areas where there is often no coverage," he denounces.
And he specifies: "After coming from crotalizing chotos (entering an identification code), which we usually do in the morning, I have to fill in the dates of birth, I go into the farmers' intranet to control
the crotalization,
updating the number of cows I have left to calve..."
Before, he had to bottle-feed the two calves he has under surveillance, two brothers whom he controls exhaustively to prevent them from being affected by a viral virus that is affecting all Spanish livestock: Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease (EHE). which makes him even more attentive to any detail to prevent it from entering the farm and wreaking havoc:
"The cows become strange,
they begin to not give milk, with very high fevers and even very strong diarrhea."
Therefore, the examination of animals becomes more vital than ever, supplying vitamins to those that may be affected.
"Fortunately, I
haven't lost any."
Veterinary care and advice become essential to avoid a devastating disease for the sector.
Mealtime
Feeding time is the most special time of the day for the cows and the one in which María Victoria and Javi spend the most time.
Scattered throughout the extensive farm, just by hearing the horn of the truck or the voice of the rancher they already know that it is time for lunch.
"I wait for them all to come, I count them, and if any are missing we have to go look for them in case they are loose there," he describes while walking among cork oaks, holm oaks and eucalyptus trees and showing off the appearance of his livestock: "In this campaign
They are extraordinarily fat,
perfect, it has rained and that allows them to feed on the pastures.
When they 'age', that is, when they die due to age, their meat will be sold to the area's slaughterhouses: "We don't sell the milk, only the meat."
The weakness of the dairy market has led many farmers to bet exclusively on this commercial outlet, in this case through the Copreca cooperative.
María Victoria feeding her cows.DAVID VIGARIO
The other tasks
There are always things to do on the farm, there is no shortage of cleaning tasks of all kinds, such as drinking troughs, sanitation, care and tuning of basic tools for optimal exploitation, such as the young rancher's latest acquisition, a ecological tractor of the latest technology with the intention of reducing the environmental impact, although it is clear that
"nature cannot contaminate nature."
In any case, he admits that "we could do things better, invest more in this aspect, but for that we would have to be paid better for our products."
Finally, he offers his support to the mobilizations of farmers and ranchers that are sweeping across Europe, including Spain, and that seem to be already giving their first results, with promises of legislative changes in Brussels and in Spain: "The rural people were very tired and I was waiting for someone to take the step. The revolt has been
a real boom,"
she explains.
So he expects concrete solutions "now or never", because he considers that agrarian legislation "is made by people who do not know the countryside."
the night comes
Night falls in 'The Pig's Court'. María Victoria finishes padlocking the last fences. She still hopes to check
on her cows and calves
in case there has been any last minute incident.
Then it will be time to close the day by opening the laptop and, hopefully
if the internet connection is not too slow,
it will be close to closing the day.
Tomorrow, when dawn breaks, he will return to his passion, although it may sound routine, but no day is the same as the previous one on a farm.
Cattle raising