Becoming a farmer? It's not that easy. Among urbanites, there's often an Arcadian image of the rural world. "And a radish!" the villagers respond. If it were that easy, the cities would be empty and the villages packed to the brim. The weekend is lovely, up in the mountains, with the fireplace lit, taking a walk, reading a book, and extending the evening with a gin and tonic. But start digging the soil on Monday, worrying about whether it rains too much or too little, taking care of the livestock, the crops, or the vineyard. Or, yes, even the rural tourism business. Work! Hard, physical work, without holidays, without much incentive.
Even with the internet and better roads, the villages remain empty. The young natives continue to leave, as began to happen decades ago, and very few young people from the cities dare to move there. The typical reality of a rural village is four smoky houses, the rest closed or, in the worst case, derelict. In the photo, everything looks beautiful, picture-postcard, idyllic. But there's no human bustle. Often, the smoking houses are inhabited by retirees. Hardly anyone is a farmer, beyond having a home garden. Empty Catalonia is beautiful and immensely empty.
In the book Stay at the other (Vibop), Julia Viejobueno Cavallé (1994) narrates her experience as a peasant. Daughter of Figuera, in the Priorat, she went to study literature at the University of Barcelona, and one day, once graduated, she decided to return to a village with just over a hundred inhabitants. To become a peasant, to live off the "others", from the dry lands of her house: mostly vineyards, but also "olive trees". And to a lesser extent "almond trees, a few apple trees, a bit of a vegetable garden, some cherry trees, and other scattered trees: pomegranates, hazel trees, fig trees, rosewoods, a linden tree and a bay tree, walnut trees, plum trees, quince trees...". The vegetable garden is the basis of annual self-sufficiency, especially in summer. With this she and her family are getting by. They are not alone. The Priorat has been revived by wine and, nevertheless, it remains an agricultural mosaic that has tried, so far unsuccessfully, to earn UNESCO status as a landscape world heritage site. But that is another story.
Julia wonders if this type of small and diverse family farm that for centuries has shaped the landscape and life in the countryside is on the way to extinction. Will it be able to survive? Will it be able to continue being a peasant instead of a agricultural entrepreneur? "Linking poor harvests and years of hardship, or machinery or health failure, puts you on the tightrope." Frost, hail, drought, fire... The conservative farmer who saves, who spends little, does so because he has memory and because he maintains hope.
"Cultivated land is the heritage of an ancient civilization of which we are still a part," he writes. That's right. Few people are aware of it. pixapins They love a landscape they neither know nor understand. In practice, many don't respect it. They simply enjoy it occasionally, like just another disposable consumer good. Young country woman: "How brave!" many tell her. The more informed bring up the issue of ecology and sustainability, a moral imperative that fraught with contradictions for her. Theory is one thing, practice another. If only it were that easy to marry the two... We must move towards that, of course, but there are also picaresque and bureaucratic absurdities.
Julia loves the countryside, her fields, including the margins with a tiller or espernallac, with junipers and holm oaks. Sometimes she finds time to distract herself by watching ants, butterflies, and frogs. She feels rooted, like her crops. This isn't immobility. It's something else. It's knowing that she's the heir to a certain knowledge and love for the place; it's working hand in hand with the vine until it becomes a sculpture molded by you. "I don't know if I could work in the others if it weren't full of beauty." He doesn't know, either, how long he'll hold out: "I live between day-to-day optimism and long-term pessimism, an equation that is nonetheless ideal for keeping my feet on the ground." A land that "is still a mystery." What a mystery and how lucky there are still Julias.
