I thought the farmer is a farmer from home, but that's not your case.

This is not my case, no. I'm a farmer, but not the one I always have. The father belonged to a small town near Salvatierra, the town of San Román de San Millán. At that time the firstborn was staying at home and the rest had to leave the house. This is what my father did. Married to their mother, the parents came to Zumarraga, where they worked in the Orbegozo foundry. That's how I was born in Urretxu. We were there until I turned sixteen. So Orbegozo brought a part of the factory to Salvatierra, and we went there. At the age of seventeen, I was working in Orbegozo – or in Atusa, if you like – of Salvatierra, adjusting. Years later I married Ondategi and slowly got into this mess.

Salsa is your livestock.

Oh, yeah! It was a delicious affair! There have been three or four heads of red cattle, of milk here in all houses for a long time – they have also been mixed up with mestizos – and I bought my mother-in-law four heads. I also bought pasture land, and I went for a walk, baked calves for meat. So I started working, until in 2001, I got myself full, in a pretty large volume.

What do you mean?

I've had two ages in my trade. In the first one, I got 40 bosses. In the second, I met with a friend: we bought more heads, we increased the stables… but my friend left me alone, because he doesn’t give money, because livestock is a way of living, and not a source of money. The money that comes from the cow is for the cow, there's nothing else. It's not profitable. His partner abandoned him, but I went ahead and moved on.

How many heads do you have now?

117 animals. 56 cows, the rest are calves, for fattening, or calves that are born these days. During the year I have two summits: in one, now, in spring, a dozen calves are born, and in the other, in autumn and winter, it is when most cows are produced. I have only one cow, I play in one color. At one time I also had chair horses, but that was nothing more than a game.

The Lizaranda partnership has not been a game.

The farmers in the area created Lizaranda to defend livestock and the public mountain. We're about eight in Zigoitia. However, it is in San Pedro where livestock has the most strength, with two dairy farms, where money and cattle – cattle and sheep – prevail. We created the association to have a certain personality before the City of Zigoitia and the Council of Álava. You can't go alone, there's no choice but to meet. In any case, I will tell you that we do not need much from the administration.

At the head of the Lizaranda association, you've complained about the legal regulations when you speak.

Because they're very restrictive. In this very same Gorbeialde everything is a restrictive measure: to blur, the limits; to simulate, the limits… The limits, for everything. This mountain, on the contrary, is very hard, it is a very short prairie, it is very hard, and the Administration only puts restrictive measures, and so we cannot get it right. You have to clean up the mountain, remove the weed -- there's not too much incident in that. But if you want to climb up the top grasslands on the mountain, you don't allow it.

They say that the mountain must be protected.

Need to protect the mountain? The mountain has to be looked after, it has to be looked after, and on the other hand it is abandoned, repeated. The Administration wants the mountain to be natural, but one thing is that it is natural and the other is that this massif is naked, dirty and full of braces. Animals and plants, everyone should live, but we too, not just lobsters. So many legal sponsorships, so many cutbacks, it's nothing but fashion. It's a conservationism, radical, you can't touch anything, but whenever you have declared natural parks there's been movement, human activity. These parks have become a park by the hand of man, not something that has fallen from the sky. Laws, rules and protections are being invented. The status of livestock or farmer seems to be a salva.

You are obviously not savage.

Farmers and farmers live in a given environment, within a given order, there is nothing else. For me, it's a very simple, very rational thing, you don't have to go crazy. A little bit of common sense, you don't need, as in life itself, common sense. We don't want to knock down mountains, we don't want to throw down trees, we don't want to match the sky with the land, we want to keep the mountain in good shape. For example, if I saw the shattering of the wild boar. There's more and more wild boar, the temperate climate is helping him more and more, the warm winter makes life easier, they don't know natural predators, and they're getting more and more wrong on the mountain. A great disaster!

You believe that the administration is abusing…

Yes, no doubt. Technicians do not live reality, they live something else, but not reality. They don't even talk to us. What for? The case depends on the strength of the City Hall and the reception received by the Council. Now, for example, we have in Zigoitia the most receptive city hall we've ever had. We do not know how long this situation will last, but they have made us the biggest case we have had for a long time in the City Hall.

You have a job at Lizaranda.

Our task is not difficult: to dislodge manure, to fill manure work with art, to care for perimeter closures to prevent animals from escaping or being placed on other lands, to cause accidents and damage...

He said that he has a way of living livestock farming, that the profession is not profitable. Instead, there's meat everywhere.

And where is that meat? Where? Little meat is produced here and we have difficulty selling. It is something I will never understand: to produce little meat in it, we cannot sell it, and every corner – small butcheries or large surfaces – full of meat! Will you explain this to me?

You questioned the beautiful! I don't know anything else that's Eusko Label.

Eusko Label is the invention of the Basque Government. They created brand, pure marketing. This does not produce value. The name has been invented by a certain trade. He has been able to guess his name, but he has not known or invented it, taking care of butchers and farmers. None of that! The meat you eat comes from here and there, there is not so much meat here!

Meat is not business.

How is the business going to be? Aid for meat is old, historical aid: one will receive a lot of money, the other little. It is not a production aid. Without help, it is impossible to produce meat. And even if you have help, there is no choice! It is not just about feeding the animal, but everything else: facilities, machinery, insurance, that is, fixed costs. Another thing is food. Calves don't grow with grass, but by concentrating, with cereal, and cereal costs money. A kilo of meat costs money.

What about milk?

They have been ruining milk for a long time. And meat takes that path. The exploitation of milk was destroyed. Costs do not contribute. This area of Zigoitia – Elosu and the rest – is a very suitable area for dairy cows, but it is not easy. Big companies like Kaiku, who have come to an agreement some time ago, are moving in some way, but the others are in a very complicated situation.

Is it worth living in these penalties and penalties?

I told her that mine is the life I do with cows. But what a life! I work my way and alone. At the beginning of July, I took ten days on vacation, before I finished the grass work and started making straw. For the rest, here you have the cows up, down. In a few days, you have the hours off, in others, you would need 24 and more. I couldn't leave the cow and leave. Live animals work all year round. It is true that there are ways of working and that I live very slave to cows. I mean, I take care of them too much. In San Prudencio I bring them to the mountain, and in mid-September I have them at home, in the stables of Ondategi.

Why?

With the month of September, the meadow begins to diminish on the mountain, and instead of raising the cows up, I bring them home, because they start making me calves. At home I don't have much grass, I have little land at my fingertips, but we have to take care of the newborn close. Then you have to see if the calf takes the milk well below the mother, if not. I have to feed the little calf… Lots of things. Here I will be the cow that has the least time on the mountain, precisely because soon the calf begins to make me: from September, in October and November, it is where most calves make me. They are very good births, because at that time it is not very cold and the calf holds well.

They would like the Administration to recognise it as an agri-livestock. “See it as a strategic sector,” as it is now said.

That's where I am. What is happening here is not happening in other countries. But here, too, there are differences. It is not the same as the farmer in Álava as the farmer in Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia. Bizkaia has a small sector, but a large box. In Álava, the sector is larger, but the savings bank is smaller.

You work with the help of the Members.

Yes, Members’ subsidies, from Europe. But if in Gipuzkoa the aid is EUR 5,000, in Álava it is EUR 2,500. Where's the difference? That Gipuzkoa contributes more to the aid. In Álava, no, here, from one year to the next, you get squeezed more and more so that you can't access the subsidies. The Council of Álava does not cooperate sufficiently with the farmer. In Bizkaia, 40% of the aid for the purchase of machinery is for the owners of machinery. In Álava, the percentage is 10%. You don't even have half the VAT.

Help to no one is conformed to.

Look, we have now been given a grant plan in the government. They have done so in total intention, but without a budget. Small grants from parliamentarians, aid for cattle fattening… this, that and that, and not budget. We talked about it in the assembly, and at the same time the authorities of the Basque Government were holding a press conference, believing that we agreed, and the farmers had not yet decided on the matter. What a strange thing!

You don’t have rust in your tongue: department stores, Diputación, Basque Government, Eusko Label…

I could be wrong, I'm not a god... Another note: at the time of mad cows, the butchers pulled out the beans from the saucepan to the farmers. There are 150 butchers in Eusko Label, in Álava there are not many. Even today, the salsa has been there, with a new regulation of the Administration: calves born anywhere they would like to be treated as knives, either in Cáceres, Cantabria or Burgos (Spain), or the same in France. However, the condition was that in this community the cattle ranchers who are inside the label will fatten those calves born out. If this condition was met, the external calf would be considered as a knife. During the discussions, demonstrators have reduced the entry of the external calf, which has been replaced by other weapons.

I have read that the butchers Eusko Label will be launched.

Yes, they will now also be named Basque Country.

Ja, ja…

Exactly!

We laugh, but this is a picture! I don't know what to think.

Did you think? Don't think anything! Let's see the cows coming up the hill to Gonga. The day will be more joyful. And remember, the money that the cow gives is for the cow. There are no benefits. If my wife didn't work outside the house, I wasn't thinking about getting ahead. Or it has to be otherwise. There is no future. With children, for example, we don't even talk about going on with cows. Not a word on these issues.