Torrelavega (EFE) that are still sealed with a handshake.
Inaugurated in June 1973 by the then Princes of Spain Juan Carlos and Doña Sofía, its main warehouse for transactions with a surface area of 15,000 square meters still attracts attention today, thanks to a metal structure without intermediate supports that won it an architecture award. .
This huge space is capable of accommodating 7,500 cattle (1,500 cows or bulls, 1,250 heifers, 3,500 calves, 750 horses and 500 sheep and goats) and it is joined by another 3,500-square-meter secondary warehouse with a capacity for the simultaneous milking of 650 cows. dairy production.
Livestock reference
The current director of the Market, Isaac Bolado, explains to EFE that the Fair has been “a benchmark” in the city for half a century as a stock market that came to host the sale of more than 6,000 Friesian cattle a week, which is has translated into a “dynamizing element of the regional livestock economy”.
This character makes the Fair, the ‘Cuadrona’ as the ranchers call it, which began as the venue for the weekly livestock markets on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and also on Thursdays for the popular street market and 22 other nature events. livestock, commercial or sports during the year.
At present, and due to the changes in the form of commercialization in the last half century, the attendance of cattle at the Fair has decreased but maintains transactions of the order of 100,000 animals per year, which are distributed in 50 weekly fairs and three special ones dedicated to to equine cattle.
This exchange of cattle makes dealers from Galicia, Asturias, Vizcaya or Teruel come weekly, some for decades, to buy the animals that Cantabrian farmers put up for sale in a facility that is currently a pilot market for reference for calf prices in Europe.
In the prehistory of this market in Torrelavega, one of the six that has a national character, the introduction of the Dutch spotted cow, in 1878, meant the takeoff of the livestock activity with the creation of the first fairs of Santa Isabel and Santa María , in 1881 and 1882, and after San Juan, which were held in the Plaza de La Llama.
With the passing of the years, and the development of the city itself, the townspeople of that time see the need for their own place, with sufficient hygienic, sanitary guarantees and administrative services for the ranchers, where to carry out the livestock transactions.
250 million pesetas and an innovative design
In this way, with an investment of 245 million pesetas and 18 months of work, the modern National Cattle Market of Torrelavega was inaugurated in 1973 with an innovative design by the architect Federico Cabrillo Vázquez, a fair that years later received the name Jesús Collado Soto, mayor of the municipality and promoter of the work.
With this, the tradition of livestock markets in Torrelavega exceeds 125 years, of which the last 50 have a huge Fair for which, at present, other complementary uses are being considered to take advantage of the large space available thanks to the project funds. European Europan.
In all this time, many things have changed in livestock farming, but the one that remains is the handshake between buyer and seller, which seals the transaction, and also the price of the animal, without the need for any notary.
Javier G. Paradelo.