Juan Javier Rios | Madrid (EFE) in a rural environment, which did not always make it easy for him.
Manuel Fortón, Baldomero López and Remedios Sánchez decided not to hide their homosexuality and are an example of the courage they had to start an agricultural business without leaving their towns despite the fact that they knew that they could meet with certain reluctance at the beginning by not giving the profile for a profession still quite masculinized.
The news should be that Manuel, Baldomero and Remedios, with 41, 42 and 36 years respectively, have opted for the field, fighting against the pressing lack of generational relief in this sector, but it should not be ignored that their sexual condition filled them, in their day, of fears that they should never have had.
For this reason, their stories serve as an inspiration and an example for all those who love the countryside but do not dare to dedicate themselves to it for fear of not fitting into the expected profile.
Before a chat of 35,000 farmers
Manuel Fortón is an agricultural engineer and works as a farmer and rancher in Alcolea de Cinca (Huesca) where one fine day, taking advantage of the Pride celebrations, he decided to confess his homosexuality in a chat room of 35,000 Spanish farmers: “I wanted to vindicate the rural pride that You can live with whoever you want in your town, doing what you like and not giving up your way of life for fear of ‘what they will say’”.
That thought encouraged him to do it and, although some criticism later “fallen” him, he kept the messages he received privately from other farmers who felt identified.
He has not given up his passion, the countryside, despite the fact that the beginnings were not easy for him as he “did not have a receptive profile” within the agricultural sector.
The key, he says, is to normalize it: “I have never hidden if they have asked me” my sexual preference because, “if you say so, they will talk for a month” but, “if you hide, they will talk for a lifetime”.
With this normality, he now lives with his partner in a town that respects them and whose neighbors see how they have become benchmark entrepreneurs in their area.
Manuel has two pig farms and 200 hectares with olive trees and other fruit crops, such as pomegranates, from which he obtains products that he sells mainly to Europe and Brazil.
It is also a source of employment because in the seasons of high production it has up to 10 workers on the staff.
rancher for love
Baldomero López became a rancher for love in the El Bierzo region of Leon where he manages, together with his partner, Isidro Lorences, a beef cattle farm.
According to what he told EFEAGRO, he has worked as a security guard and cook outside his town (Tejedo del Sil) for 21 years until he returned to his town, met Isidro and they decided on the countryside since his in-laws were ranchers and had some cattle.
Baldomero acknowledges that it is his partner who is teaching him “a lot” about the trade as a rancher, that “it is not easy.”
In his case, after confessing his homosexuality, he did have to face criticism from residents of the town but his family, especially his mother, defended that “everyone had the right to be happy as they are.”
Currently, they live more in the municipality of Isidro, Cuevas del Sil, because “they treat us like one more” but he acknowledges that, at first, people were shocked that “a gay was a rancher.”
Over time, “they see everything very normal” and he would like his testimony to “serve as an example” for all those who, being in a similar situation, do not dare to take the plunge and fulfill their dreams.
goatherd in steppe
Remedios Sánchez is a goatherd in Estepa (Seville) where he lives with his wife, Rosario, after taking over from his father and grandfather in 2016 as head of a dairy goat farm.
Despite being a technical engineer, she decided to expand the family farm in such a way that she has more than 400 goats.
She admits that she has a very normal life with her partner in the town and that the reluctance she has encountered has been more due to the fact that she is a woman than because she is a lesbian, because many goatherds continue to be surprised that a girl can carry on by herself. a cattle farm.
Their marriage does not escape the harsh routine of farming because, for example, when they got married last December, they barely had a five-day honeymoon.
It wasn’t a problem because his wife understands this trade and even helps out on the farm when she can.
Now, her next goal is to continue building this life project together with the arrival of a child. EFE
