Brand Studio for FAIRS
The history of the shipping company Campos y Ganados SA began in 1956 with the merger of two trade fair companies in the interior of Buenos Aires. Further back in time, in 1988, it was left at the helm of Oscar Subarroca, who began his link with the world of cattle auctions when he was just 14 years old, at a fair in Ramallo.
Today, Subarroca is still at the forefront. It has been 46 years since he joined the consignee, one of the first in the country to give televised auctions, broadcast from the Creole Museum of the Corrales, in the old Liniers Market.
Regarding the Liniers Market, moved to Cañuelas and transformed into the modern Agro-Livestock Market, Subarroca was its last president. He served in that position chosen by his colleagues and had to "close the gate" of the old market, which operated for 121 years in the Mataderos neighborhood. It was a milestone in the history of national cattle breeding.
The Origins
Francisco Subarroca and his wife Haydeé bought one of the first houses built in Pérez Millán, a town in the district of Ramallo, located one block from the railroad station. There they set up a general store. It was in this scenario that Oscar was born, and at the age of 14 he joined the local firm Jorge Mutti y Cía., dazzled by the activity of the fair. "He did everything that someone who is learning does: he received and set aside the hacienda that arrived in the trucks, in the afternoon he was a ticket salesman," Subarroca recalls. That's how his career in the field began.
Ideal scenario. Oscar Subarroca, arm raised, on a fairground catwalk, his natural environment.
His path was interrupted when he had to do his military service. She then began her studies in Veterinary Medicine, which she would leave; At the same time, Adolfo Bullrich y Cía., a well-known consignee and administrator of fields and ranches, entered the house, where he worked touring establishments and checking the treasury.
The next step was in agricultural journalism: he joined the staff of Clarín Rural. "I covered indoor fairs and did reports; At that time, the price sold in bulk began to be transformed with a calculation that we made of the mileage of the animals and the price per kilo standing was given," he explains. while he goes over the names of his co-workers: Marcelo Bragagnolo, Marcelo Guevara and Susana Merlo.
At that time, due to his journalistic work, he toured the fair environment, where he developed many relationships. He lists firms: Daroca, Vicco and Verón in Entre Ríos, Casa Tapia in Baradero, Casa Lago in General Lamadrid, Azcona in Azul, Miramont and Casa Naveyra Hnos. in Ayacucho, Eduardo J. Macchi in Maipú, Battistezza SRL and Hacendados del Este in Dolores. "I was at the height of those fairhouses; some don't exist anymore," he says.
Milestone along the way
The year was 1977. After his experience at Clarín, Subarroca joined the shipping company Campos y Ganados S.A., from which he would never leave. The firm had been operating since 1956, when it emerged as a result of the merger of two houses: Julianelli, Arex, Oroquieta y Cía., of Benito Juárez, and Eduardo J. Macchi, of Maipú. "The two firms held wintering fairs and joined forces to set up a booth in the Liniers Market. Campos y Ganados continues this tradition of fairs and is formed to send fat cattle to Liniers," sums up Subarroca. He was in charge of the hammer precisely on the Mataderos premises from the early 90s until it stopped working in 2022, and today he does it on the catwalks of the Agro-Livestock Market
The auctioneer teamed up with Guillermo Burgin in his entry into Campos y Ganados, and that partnership remained until 1988, when Burgin retired and he was left at the helm. In those years, the activity expanded and the fairs multiplied in the vast geography of Buenos Aires: Capitán Sarmiento, Baradero, Bolívar, Pehuajó, Benito Juárez, a stronghold with Paco Cosentino as representative, Ingeniero Thompson, Tres Lomas district, and San Cayetano.
Encounter. Fairs are social spaces that bring together protagonists from the livestock world.
Currently, the firm maintains the Claraz fair, in Necochea, with the representation in charge of José "Chamaco" Etcheber. "Trade fairs are a meeting place, a place for direct contact with customers, who feel represented by the fair. Affection and trust are indelible, that's what makes this profession," he says.
The "hammers" of Campos y Ganados are recognized in the environment. Víctor Sisinni passed through there, as well as Manuel Lanusse and Juan Arrix, who was still active; as well as Subarroca itself, of course.
Tip-off
"Campos y Ganados is the firm that has given the most auctions for Canal Rural," says the hammerer. These auctions began in 2002; The shipping company was one of the first to adopt the modality and, to date, has 231. She was also a pioneer in auctioning off fattened cattle in Liniers.
Subarroca points out that in the first televised auction from the Criollo Museum of Los Corrales "steers and fat cows were sold for export, with a certificate, and the then president of SENASA, Bernardo Cané, was present."
In 2007, the first edition of Expoagro, the consignee auctioned 12,000 head on television. "That was the boom of televised. After that auction, the impact on livestock was very strong and many partner firms began to give auctions on television," he adds.
The Value of the Word
"For me, the Liniers Market means 45 years of life." Subarroca expresses this, while vindicating the routine of getting up at five in the morning to get to his place of work and fighting "healthy battles" with buyers to achieve good prices. He also evokes Malaquías' bowling alley, the churrasco or the mid-morning matambrito and the "dear Esteban D'apice, who reported the values achieved in the operations".
"It was a great emotion to have closed the Liniers Market and move on to the Cañuelas Agricultural and Livestock Market. It was a positive change," he says.
He leads a life in the corrals. Subarroca is always grateful to the clients who have accompanied him over the years and to the team that supports him in the firm, with his brother Roberto and Martín García; he feels the absence of Mario Cibran, who was there from the beginning. And he accurately defines the activity that he is passionate about: "The business of consignment of cattle is strictly based on the trust that the livestock producer places in the farmer. It is a business that was and is a word; To this day, that's still the case."