Virginia Gomez Madrid
Madrid
Updated Sunday, February 4, 2024-00:50
McGuffey eats some forage with his companions Delta and Houston. A few meters away,
Arizona gives birth to a calf
while future mothers watch. Around him, a gigantic
roomba
does not stop spinning. There is cold air that chills the skin, but in this geographical space the temperatures do not slow down the pace. We are in
La Rinconera
(Griñón), one of the four livestock farms in the region that has embarked on the
Leche Madriz
project . Together with Granja
La Huerta
(Villa del Prado),
La Fortunata
(Leganés) and
Hiflomar
(Valdemoro), it thus aims to survive a dairy crisis that does not cease. Producing and selling
your own milk, the first 100% from Madrid
, seems like your only alternative. And this week, after more than two years of negotiations, this white gold has reached the murals of
supermarkets
in Spain.
10 years ago, in the Community of Madrid there were about 100 livestock farms. Today, of all those, barely thirty remain. The low prices at which they have been forced to sell the milk they produce has made them abandon.
«It's not attractive. And the one that leaves, does not return
," says the owner of La Rinconera, Sergio González, standing on the farm and with the katiuskas on.
Faced with this panorama, and with the intention of promoting the sector, one of the most affected by the
lack of personnel and the generational change
, he and his brother, and three other families with a dairy tradition from Madrid, have joined together in the
Dairy Cooperative Madrid
to highlight the quality of the milk from the region's cows.
Sergio González, at the La Rinconera farm.
GRAN MADRID has traveled to the
Griñón fields
that González exploits to witness first-hand the particularities of this Madrid milk, and how and who generates it.
High technology
If something stands out in La Rinconera, in addition to the tranquility that is felt there, it is how
technology has changed the way of working
. The 550 cows on this farm - like the other three - are
monitored 24 hours
a day through an infrared collar that provides "super information" to its owner to manage his business more efficiently.
«In the past, the first thing was to go see the cows. Now, we go to the computer, which does the first check of the farm. We work in a different way,
we have more data and better management of the animals
. And we prevent many things,” says González.
The
computer system
it has is capable of measuring the temperature of the animal, knowing if it is sick, the production it gives per day per breast and the average, how long it eats, what it eats, what the quality of its milk is like, if it is in heat...
Roberto González and Ángel García, on the latter's farm.
Furthermore, in this particular farm,
the cows milk themselves
. The rooms they had for this work became obsolete, explains González, and they decided to invest in four
robots
where each cow comes when it needs it. Upon entering, the device detects which animal it is, cleans its udders with water, soap and disinfectant, and puts on the breast pumps.
In exchange, he gives them a vanilla-scented feed that is "like a treat" for them
. "If the cow has recently entered and only wants to come in to eat, the machine detects this and opens the door again for it to come out," he adds. And if there is a problem, if the cow is sick, this intelligent robot does not milk the cow either so that its milk does not mix with that of the healthy ones.
The rancher says that this system
relieves the animals of a lot of stress
. «Before, they were milked at six in the morning and five in the afternoon. The last one had to wait up to an hour to be milked, and that caused them discomfort and anxiety. Now, with this system, he says, "that disappears." «Here when they want to eat, they eat; When they want to be milked, they milk themselves... », he adds.
In the cooperative's farms, in addition, the animals have
scratching posts
- which the cows also use as they please - and
huge fans
so that the animals can better withstand the summer temperatures, in addition to a giant
roomba
that, in addition to cleaning the room, He brings the food to them. All of this, the farmer insists, means that the cow feels better, produces more and gives better quality milk. Because if there is something that Leche Madriz wants to sell, it is that.
A five star hotel"
«There are three things why we talk about quality. The first is the
Animal Welfare certification
that we have recognized by Aenor. The cows are calm, cared for... Here they are like a five-star hotel," explains Ángel García, owner of La Huerta and spokesperson for the cooperative. «In addition, we have
experience
. The four ranchers have more than 30 years in the sector. And we have
high technology
installed on the farms
,” he adds as we visit the Griñón farm, where the cows rest in huge warehouses. Because this, he details, is how dairy cows live. “The Central Lechera Asturiana advertisements have done a lot of damage,” comments the owner of La Rinconera next to him, laughing.
Still life with the three types of milk that reach the market.
"Older people are going to notice the quality because of the flavor," says Ángel García, although his product is not only aimed at this type of audience.
"We want to reach everyone, also the new generations
," he adds. Hence his nod to his name, Madriz, and to that fun packaging that shows a cow flying through the sky, and supported by a balloon, in front of the Madrid skyline.
Another of the emblems of this project, points out the commercial director, Álvaro Peironcely, is that it has
100% traceability
of the product, that is, it is not mixed in the pasteurization process with any other milk. "It was very difficult for us to find a plant that was committed to this," he adds after detailing that this plant is located in Cantabria because there is none in Madrid.
This project, which four livestock farms have started, was born with the intention of growing. «
It is open to all livestock farmers in Madrid
. Our most ambitious objective is to bring together the largest number of livestock farms to make milk in Madrid for Madrid," says García.
Ainhoa Fernández, the wife of the owner of La Rinconera, on the farm.
The idea is that this adventure they have embarked on is economically sustainable. For this reason, they are going to be at the
top of the market
, far from competing with the white label. “We want to differentiate ourselves,” says Ángel García clearly. «We are going to go out at 1.24. It is a fair price for the business to be sustainable,” adds Peironcely.
Milk, everyone insists, does not leave great margins. "Here we go for pennies," says the Griñón rancher, who saw this opportunity as the only way to survive. "We cannot sell almost below cost."
Together, there are
1,000 milking cows
, which produce about 35,000 liters per day. "They are medium-sized farms and, between the four of them,
they collect 23% of the liters produced in the community
, about 12,500,000 liters annually," explains the commercial director of Leche Madriz. The idea of the cooperative is that these figures increase as the business grows. And that's what they already work for.
They all take care of their own
replacement of calves
. «Each one takes two years to start producing. Here we inseminate them artificially, with the semen of the bull that interests us to improve the livestock," explains the owner of La Rinconera, who inherited the business from his father and this, from his grandfather, who just started with four cows in the center of Griñón. Now, it has about 550, although only half currently give milk.
In addition to their work, ranchers promote a
circular economy
, providing fertilizer to surrounding farms with the manure of their cows. Because the idea is that all Madrid residents win.
The figures of the sector
200 cows. They are the 'dairy farmers' that are on average in each of the four farms that make up the Cooperativa Lechera Madrileña and manufactures Leche Madriz.
8,500 liters. It is the daily collection of milk that each of the farms does. In total they add up to almost 35,000 liters a day, which are later converted into whole, semi and skimmed milk.
28 livestock farms. They are those that remain in the Community of Madrid after the dairy crisis, which has caused 70 others to disappear.