Ramon Carbonell, third generation of a family of ranchers from Ribes de Freser, has not been able to figure out his accounts for a long time. The drought has prevented him from making the transhumance this year with his cows to the rugged Cape of Creus, where the cattle grazed freely for half a year until spring arrived and the grass grew again in the mountain meadows.
However, this year and for the first time, the few ranchers left in the Ribes valley have not moved with their animals. “In the Empordà there is no water or food,” says Carbonell, 60 years old. They also do not have food in the Pyrenees and water, less and less. “This year it hasn't even rained to give the lizards enough to drink and the fountains here are also drying up,” he explains. His cows drink from artisan wells and these days feed on dry grass (hay) from France.
“Having to buy grass outside was unthinkable before, now it is the only solution if we want to feed the animals,” he says. A price that has skyrocketed, and now you pay double. The situation for the sector is so dramatic that some of his colleagues, seeing themselves almost ruined, have already thrown in the towel and sold a large part of the cabin. “We have also had to retire some old cows,” he says.
If you take out the calculator, you realize that the word ruin in the mouths of the primary sector is no exaggeration. Each 500 kilo bale of hay, for which Ramon pays one hundred euros, is enough to feed between 20 and 25 animals in one day alone. He needs twelve bales a day to feed his 270 organic beef cows that he has spread across several farms in the Ripollès mountain.
Every day, then, he spends 1,200 euros on food alone. “This is unsustainable, ruinous, it cannot be paid for, let's see who can overcome this year...,” she laments. Added to this is the diesel fuel for the tractor, the rent for the land where the animals graze, which is not cheap, and the cost of the tractor, about 70,000 euros, which in his case fortunately has already been paid.
The drought is the straw that has broken the camel's back of the sector's resilience. The costs of working on the land, whether due to inflation or the diesel crisis, at the time, and now due to the lack of rainfall, are increasing, while what he receives for his calves has remained almost unchanged in recent years. four decades.
“In the eighties we sold calves for 80,000 pesetas, today they pay us between 500 and 600 euros, in the best of cases; We are almost at the same point, while the cost of living has not stopped rising; something is wrong,” explains the rancher who, unlike the majority of his professional colleagues, has guaranteed generational change.
His two children are fully convinced of following in his footsteps. “I know that the schedule is very demanding, but for me the work is much more satisfying than being in a slaughterhouse where I would earn much more and have a fixed schedule,” explains the eldest, Arnau, who has studied veterinary medicine and who last Friday helped his father with forty calves and pregnant cows that were roaming on land between Ribes de Freser and Campelles.
About 25 hectares with views of the Taga and Balandrau mountains, of unfortunate memory, in a very unusual picture in a month of February. No sign of snow. “If I had to start from scratch, I wouldn't do it, but I've lived this since I was little and I like it,” explains the young man, who wears a short-sleeved t-shirt in the middle of winter. Climate change things.
The fourth generation of this family of ranchers will continue in the trade despite all the vicissitudes, which are not few. “My grandfather made a better living with 20 cows than we did with 270,” says the father, Ramon, who this year will also see how the agricultural insurance for which he pays 6,000 euros will not cover his losses.
“There is no food left here, we have never had a year this dry, but they tell us that they are not going to pay us anything,” he laments. The problem, according to the agricultural union Unió de Pagesos, lies in the reading of the vegetation levels of the farms carried out by a satellite, which means that the result does not correspond to reality.
The ranchers ask the administration for help so that this situation does not destroy the few “heroes” – in the words of Carbonell – who are still “dedicated to the countryside.” “We are running out of farmers, and a country without food is a country without a future,” says this 100% vocational rancher, who approaches his work as a hobby.
“Those of us who dedicate ourselves to agriculture or livestock, if we did it for money there would be no one left, we continue because we have lived it all our lives,” argues Carbonell, who predicts that the six years he has left before he can retire “will be to be the hardest and longest of your life.”
A sector that is increasingly suffocated by “excessive paperwork and bureaucracy.” So much so that father and son explain that the rancher for whom things are going best is not necessarily the one who has a better product, but rather the one who puts all his efforts into asking for subsidies. “If you are good with the computer, you have an advantage,” they say.
Meanwhile, the sector is losing steam. “Forty years ago, in the Ribes valley there were ten times as many farmers as there are now; Now there are no sheep or dairy cows left, and the next ones to disappear will be the beef cows,” laments Ramon. “Those of us who remain are older and very, very few will continue.” The future looks black.
