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Being a farmer is in itself a superhero's job. , because every day the farmer faces very big challenges. But there are those who, in addition to working in the field, try to bring agriculture closer to the rest of society and promote technological innovation in agriculture, starting with Agriculture 4.0 and the digitization of the sector, which is increasingly crucial.
He is Catalan, originally from the Lérida area, and belongs to the third generation of a farming family. In addition to his work in the field, he has an Instagram with 84 . 000 followers. And for the past few months, xFarm, the digital farming platform, has also been working with us to introduce Spanish farmers to our free integral farm management application. A few days ago we had a chance to talk a bit with him, and this is what he told us.
I am twenty-five years old and from Bellcaire d'Urgell, a town of about one thousand two hundred inhabitants surrounded by fields. It is located about thirty-five kilometers from Lérida, in the interior of Catalonia.
Well, it runs in my family: I belong to the third generation of a family of farmers, in my house they have always worked in this field. So I grew up in the country, I lived it a lot, and I always loved machinery, watching how tractors work, the contact with the field. So I got an average degree in agricultural appraiser and decided to stop studying and stay and work at home.
I think right now social networks are good for everything, honestly. They are very effective in making yourself known and teaching what you do on a daily basis, and that's what I do. But for me, the idea of starting my own profile on Instagram didn't come about because of anything useful, but because of how much I enjoy taking pictures, recording videos and sharing them. I have in fact been on Instagram for ten years now, and if you take a look at my profile you can see that I have always uploaded posts, quite often, precisely because I have always liked the idea of sharing my photos and videos. But the real boom in followers was just before the pandemic, that's when I started having so many. Let's say it all started by doing something I liked. One thing led to another and here we are!
Yes, the majority are people who, in one way or another, are dedicated to the agricultural sector. But I know I also have followers with totally different professions. For example, I know there are several police officers who follow me. Imagine, a couple of weeks ago I was riding a motorcycle, it was the weekend, and the Mossos d'Esquadra stopped me. They asked for my papers and when I gave them my ID card one of them looked at it and said, "Agrogómez, right?" I was very surprised, I didn't expect that!
I actually think it was because of my interest in driving in general. I am passionate about everything related to driving, any kind of vehicle. I love motorcycles, for example, I participated in the 24 Hours of Catalonia on the Montmeló circuit . But of course, as my family has always been in agriculture, I have always had tractors and machinery in general at hand, and they have always fascinated me. We have a picture where I appear, at eight months old, already on the tractor, with my father. I think there was already something there. And when I was a little boy, I was ten or twelve years old, I used to ask my grandfather to let me go with him to water the corn in the summer, even though I had to get up very early because he went out at six in the morning . But I was having a great time, so he took me along.
For a farmer, the tractor is the most important working tool. It is really essential, for everything. I could not imagine modern agriculture without tractors.
Well, I think it was a few weeks ago at FIMA. I attended with xFarm and so many people who knew me on Instagram came to say hello and take a picture with me. And the truth is, it was a really nice moment because it was really the first time I was attending an event since I had the boom of followers. As I said, I started having very shortly before the pandemic, and for the next two years, of course, there were no events. So to meet so many people who knew me and wanted to say hello, after so long without attending events, was a really special moment, probably the most special moment since I've been a content creator.
We are in Bellcaire d'Urgell. It is not far from Lérida, which is the second most populated city in Catalonia after Barcelona, but in the whole area of Bellcaire d'Urgell the main activity is agriculture. Specifically, we grow mainly forages and cereals, for example, wheat, corn, barley, alfalfa, and oats.
I have quite a bit of experience with such applications and platforms. I have already used a couple of agricultural platforms, but honestly they had nothing to do with xFarm. At the moment, also thanks to the support of xFarm, we have digitized all the fields and installed a weather station and a soil moisture sensor. In general the printing is very good and the technologies are really useful. I really like the ability to have all the tractors located, but also the data from the weather stations, and the technology xFarm together with the platform, and being able to control everything from your cell phone. It simplifies the work, I recommend it.
Yes, I am actually a professional drone pilot. This came about because, as I mentioned, I have always loved recording videos. In 2017 I had already recorded some of them related to agriculture, and at that time drones were not yet known about, they were not as popular a technology as they are now. But when people started to talk about them I was fascinated: on the one hand it was another kind of vehicle to drive, in a certain way, and on the other hand it was clear that it would allow you to record very special images. So I started to learn about the subject, and when I read that you needed a license to use them, I started to study and got one. In fact, I liked it so much that I decided to get all my drone pilot licenses, so now I have them all, including a professional technical inspector course.
Without a doubt the most difficult thing is to want to be a farmer and start from scratch. It is practically impossible. I could not have dedicated myself to it if it were not for all the work done by my parents, who founded the farm years ago, buying tractors and machinery. When I finished studying, I seem to remember that you could ask for aid of thirty to sixty thousand euros to get started. But with that you don't even buy a tractor, it's absurd. The investment needed to start from scratch in this sector is much greater, you need about three hundred thousand euros. In other words, for any young farmer who wants to start in this sector, from scratch, I think the path is very difficult, actually.
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