Life story The dairy farmer who seeks to decontract the church and shows the activity of the field

(Clarín Rural) Father Julio César Ramos tells his story linked to spirituality, education and the countryside, and reviews the day to day at the La Trinidad Agrotechnical School, in Ferré, in the north of Buenos Aires

“Young people are the future” has been said and is always said. But the truth is that young people are the present, because everything that is not done today by and for them will later be too late. In this sense, the school environment is a space where you can learn by doing.

Julio César Ramos was born in a city/town in the south of San Juan called La Bebida. His father was a gendarme and as such he came and went to different border posts. His mother, a housewife dedicated to the education of her children. He remembers that there, in La Bebida, they rented a house attached to a field with vineyards, olive groves and orchards. Since In 1978, after finishing primary school, he knew that he wanted to follow the path of the Church and that of teaching.. So it was.

Once received, he went through an agrotechnic in Río Cuarto, a wine school in Mendoza, another in Salta and then San Luis. For almost ten years he has been a professor of philosophy and educational sciences at the Agrotechnical School of La Trinidad, in Ferré, General Arenales district, province of Buenos Aires. From his place he has been able to bond closely with the rural tasks that it promotes in social networks.

“What I always liked the most and that stuck with me as a child was the smell of the harvest, when the harvest begins, with the trucks coming and going, the sugary smells that remain in the environment are priceless,” Ramos recalled.

the drum

In Ferré, Ramos put the dairy on his shoulder, fundamental for the institution because it is from there that the raw material is obtained to make sweets and cheeses that are later sold. But not only for that, but, and perhaps mainly, because there the boys learn values, it is a space with great educational value.

Right now, in the dairy, they have some 140 milking cows, with an average of 29 literswhich yields a production of between 4,000 and 4,500 liters per day of which half is left for the production of products in the school and the other half is sold outside to a plant in Venado Tuerto that also makes cheese.

“The dairy, but also the pig farm, the orchard, what is done with livestock, agriculture, all the spaces have a formative spirit, where the children are taught the activity, it is a learning space and economic support also for the things we doRamos said. The ones who are most in the tambo are the fifth-year students.

The father with some 5th grade students at the dairy, where they produce between 4,000 and 4,500 liters of milk per day.The father with some 5th grade students at the dairy, where they produce between 4,000 and 4,500 liters of milk per day.

“In the beginning we depended on other people to carry out the work in the dairy, today we do everything, and for us it is very important because it provides us with the raw material for other types of elaborations that the boys make, such as dulce de leche and cheese,” Ramos reviewed. And he added: “I was personally in charge of transforming the dairy so that it can be that generation of efficient and consistent raw material.”

Ramos really has a special affection for the dairy. He recognizes that many times he has gone to milk at 3 in the morning and is left with the best feelings that accompany him the rest of the day. “I love being in the pit with the boysMany times I have come to give mass and when I put my hands together and bring them close to my face, I feel the smell of sealant from the cow’s nipple on my fingers,” he said. And he said: “It reminds me that it’s not only spiritual, but it’s the effort, the work, being with people.”

A group of students during a chicken slaughter in Ferré.A group of students during a chicken slaughter in Ferré.

farm work

“The connection with the land is priceless, in fact, when we are kids we love to get dirty, muddy, it provides many values ​​of care, cultivation, effort, consideration, concern and joy at seeing the fruits of the earth,” shared Ramos.

“Then the productive possibilities that the land has in different places and challenges man to produce in the middle of the Cuyo desert with ditches and irrigation, or do it in the humid pampas depending on the rains,” he stressed. And he emphasized: “I I am excited about what is removed from the land not by way of exploitation but as a social service because it’s food for people, it’s not just profit for the producer who, by the way, has been hit hard lately”.

In this sense, when asked about the relationship between the countryside and the city, Ramos argued that in Arenales, “most people live and work in the countryside, so they understand the value of the countryside, but there are also people who dedicate themselves to other things and even here himself has another look at rurality”.

Taking care of the garden is one of the activities that the students learn.Taking care of the garden is one of the activities that the students learn.

However, this is something that he attributes a lot to political fuss: “Something that sometimes happens because of political views, because of neighborhood rivalries, because of deeply rooted issues, and if this happens in a small town, like Ferré, with 3,000 inhabitants, very linked to the countryside, I can’t imagine in other places where first-hand rural activity is further removed from everyday life,” Ramos said.

In this sense, he believes that that of “oligarch, is an old nickname that is taken advantage of and exploited by politicians, and it is a great challenge for us, who are in the field, to be able to transform it”. “The good thing is that I see people willing to try to do it, try to communicate to the field in a different way,” he said.

However, he warned that sometimes the country people themselves remain very closed, making an inbred communication. “Those of us from the countryside end up talking to those from the countryside, a bloody prison that is dangerous, because we make our heads with catharsis and lose the focus of opening ourselves up to listen to the other and for another to listen to us and get to know us,” explained the priest.

communion with the people

Asked about the new forms of spirituality to which people cling, Ramos acknowledged that “even though it has been greatly updated, the church must, we must, still retrace a long road not only for the transformation of the doctrine but also the way of the message”.

“Today many of the doctrines of strong oriental origin are supplying spaces in the need of the people of the spiritual that it not only has to do with the religious but with a human space that has been disregarded by the church because it seemed that success was the knowledge of the doctrine, knowing all the things of the faith seemed to make one more Christian or Catholic and then life went the other way, ”explained the priest. And he added: “We continue to cling to the doctrinal, which is important, but we are still not able to hit the key to enter the hearts of the people.”

“Conceiving the activity of the church only with the result is misleading because it complicates the message, success is not the measure of the result that the church should seek,” said Ramos.

sport and meeting

A fan of San Lorenzo, he recognizes that his family has always had a link with sport in general. Her sister is a field hockey player and her brother is a referee and technical director of a team in San Juan. He has been a soccer player in his teens and for a while dabbled in rugby. He later played with the boys in schools “until he gave him the physique.”

“I played soccer as a nine, then I started to go further back, in defensive positions,” Ramos said. And he added: “The Salesian charism gives sport a great space and this is where I am today”.

Beyond competition, he highlighted cooperation in the game, feeling together the desire for victory but not the subjugation of the other but from personal improvement, beyond the fact that later one wins and the other loses, the objective should be to be able to overcome one from a collective understanding, “he explained. And he deepened: “That’s why I like team sports more than individual sports and I seek to highlight those values ​​to the boys.”

Even once the students returned to school after the harsh times of isolation and pandemic, sport was the cornerstone to bring them together again. “It was difficult for us at the beginning but the sport was of great help”, acknowledged Ramos.

Ramos acknowledges that his parents formed a “strong team” and that is one of the great legacies. “From my father, I received love for the country and care for others, along with the strength of the Christian faith that I have seen her active and practiced throughout her life, forming a strong team with mom, they were married 57 years,” Ramos related.

From his mother, Ramos also rescued the concern for the children, the way to correct and educate them “with an educational wisdom that has served me today in my life as a teacher.”

TikTok and the young

At 56, Ramos is obviously not a digital native, but he is a regular user of social networks, mostly Twitter and Instagram, but also tiktok, which he uses as a way of getting closer to his students. The course had begun with facebook.

Sowing wheat in ferré, one of the scenes that Ramos shares on social networks.Sowing wheat in ferré, one of the scenes that Ramos shares on social networks.

With background music, in the foreground and looking at the camera, Father Julio César Ramos invites people to participate in the church, shares sermons and parables, but also many images of school activities and the countryside. A) Yes, in his feed you can see sunsets, cows, calves, the milking parlor, the work of the young people in the dairy planta sowing or a harvest.

“I have to work with adolescents entering youth, it is an age in which certain things are lived with a certain degree of enthusiasm, what they experience and know from the countryside also comes from their families, for that reason, the majority, when they finish, continue studying agronomy or veterinary medicine, and then end up linked to the activity”, said Ramos.

However, he pointed out that there are plenty of professionals for the field in the area, “it is a very competitive place.” “Some, after a while, end up leaving because there are no other horizons here, I try to accompany them and offer my advice to contain and guide them.”

In addition to sports and reading, the father enjoys listening to music and walking. “Feeling the fresh air of the night, contemplating the sunsets renews me and strengthens me to face the next day. He also declares himself a “fierce carnivore”, he loves barbecue.

“Argentina’s greatest challenge is to rebuild dignity, common achievements that make us feel like a country, something that is truncated today, there is a sense of community that must be restored and for that we need a sense of team and unity, hopefully we will achieve it “, desire.

Life story The dairy farmer who seeks to decontract the church and shows the activity of the field