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Ewa Rąbek: It wasn’t easy to convince you for an interview…
Doris: Actually, I was a bit hesitant (laugh).
Why?
Mainly because in our society, women working on the farm, and especially in livestock, are not well received. So I’m no stranger to online hate… In our country, there is still a belief that work in agriculture is reserved for men, and delicate and weak women should only deal with the house and possibly some lighter work on the farm.
Of course you don’t agree with that?
No! Women in this case are in no way inferior to men. Often, many of them write to me that they would like to be more involved in their farms, for example, to operate machines, and not only to take care of animals or harvest work “at the shovel”. Men are reluctant to see them in these roles. So they have to show great perseverance and good intentions. I agreed to the interview to show that women can do anything. I occupy an important place on our farm. I’m not just a farmer’s wife, I’m a farmer.
How did you become a farmer?
I have been connected with agriculture since I was a child, the love for it was instilled in me by my grandfather, who was not a farmer at all, but a railway worker (laugh). I was his beloved granddaughter, he took me everywhere, showed me the charms of the countryside, taught me how to work with animals and taught me how to enjoy what surrounds me. From year to year I became more and more involved in life on our farm, and now I can’t imagine myself anywhere else. Today, together with my father and husband, I run the family farm. Such, which in our country is unfortunately less and less in favor of large “enterprises”, which focus on quantity, not quality. And every animal is just “art”. Almost everything I know today as a farmer was taught to me by my husband. He devoted his time and believed in me, thanks to which today we work together, we develop the farm together. And we still can’t get enough of each other (laugh).
What do you grow and breed?
Our farm is focused on plant production. We grow cereals, rape, corn, sugar beets and sunflowers. In addition, my husband and I have been breeding limousine cattle for eight years. Most of our livestock are wet nurses, we sell their offspring, i.e. weaners (eight-, nine-month-old calves). We also breed possums, i.e. animals intended for slaughter. We managed to breed several bull sires, which went to new herds.
You often say that working with cattle can be very dangerous, you mention herd terror. What do you mean?
Herd terror is nothing more than animal abuse of the weakest, less brave animals. The cows drive others away from the trough, attack them. Bulls can toss weaker animals into the air. Once they almost threw one animal over a two-meter fence, another time they killed a weaker animal. And cattle can be aggressive towards humans. Once, while driving the purchased bulls, one of them attacked my husband. He knocked him to the ground, luckily he was quickly chased away. We also have some aggressive cows. One attacked me many times while spreading hay. I couldn’t get along with her for a long time, but finally she realized that in this herd I rule and it’s not worth messing with me. We are now relatively calm.
All because you treat your pets well…
Yes. We really want all of them to be treated with dignity and have the best conditions. It doesn’t matter if they stay with us for life or if they only spend a few years here. And we can see the effects – many people ask if we add any sedatives to the feed. Then I always say, “No, I add a bit of myself.” I know how much time it takes to arouse their trust, establish a hierarchy, tame them. I even give animals names.
Do they react to them?
Yes, after a while some start. I tame our cattle, which outrages many people, but I do it because it is easier for us to work with them later, we are safer. Animals are not aggressive towards us, they feel good with us, they are not stressed, and this also improves their quality of life. Of course, there are many dangerous incidents, because cows and bulls have different characters, but there are fewer such events now. I try not to care about criticism because of this, although after so many years in this profession, I can say with certainty that our society unfairly judges farmers. They are hated for the famous “subsidies”, and breeders are sometimes called murderers. The fashion for being vegan is also working, but still only about 10 percent. of the world’s population do not eat meat.
The rhythm of your life is determined by the needs of the earth and animals, you live according to the rhythm of the seasons. Don’t you sometimes feel like a slave to your farm?
Absolutely not. I love my job and wouldn’t change it for anything. Sure – sometimes it’s hard, but I try not to complain. We usually start work at 7.00 and finish it at 10.00. 20.00/21.00. Well, unless it’s harvest time, it happens that we work until midnight. It’s quieter in winter, but there’s still plenty of work to be done. Holidays are very important to us, then we can get away from everything, switch off, focus on ourselves The animals are then looked after by our dad. We try to go out on Saturday nights, and Sundays (except for feeding the animals) we have all to ourselves.
You run an Instagram account where you show what the life of farmers looks like. You’re not doing this to show off that you can drive a tractor, do you know how to handle an aggressive bull…
No. The more so that category B is enough to drive the tractor itself, only category B is needed to drive mounted machines – T, B+E or C+E. And you know: no paper can replace practice. Many colleagues who have much higher qualifications, e.g. have completed courses on deep-sea excavators and other “miracles”, often come to me because they can’t really drive a regular loader or pallet truck, move pallets from place to place. But back to the topic: my profile is used to show what the work and life of farmers looks like. This is important work and often very hard. People don’t know about many things, they don’t understand, and when you don’t understand and don’t know something, it’s easy to criticize. I also treat my Instagram profile as a commemorative album. It’s nice to come back after some time to important moments in the past that I managed to immortalize. And as I mentioned – I want to inspire other women to fight for their dreams. It’s worth it.
Source: Gazeta
Tristin is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
