Bill Ferdinand Giraldo (that’s the name of the protagonist of our story) that with his white and blonde hair they told him that being called Kennedy suited him. He is not part of the illustrious and presidential American family, but for a few weeks he has more link to Ireland than I would have thought.
Born in Córdoba, but from a family from La Carlota, a municipality in the Cordovan countryside where the olive tree and the cereal cover dense plates of earth, Tomy —whom Twitter has put on the map—not only has it come to the fore for a hashtag (#UnTractorParaTomy), but also for being a voice of the Andalusian countryside in times of social networks.
A story that goes through to park Law and ADE, to sell insurance and to lease land until he decided to resume the family business. Olive grower, farmer and tractor driver, it was not until a couple of years ago when —also via Twitter— he decided to sell his own oil
millennial (he was born on November 24, 1987) and with his feet on the ground —almost always literally—, Tomy’s story cannot be limited to just the social networksthough they have served as a loudspeaker.
Of chance, virtue
It was 2019 when Tomy Rohde landed on Twitter, he did, he says, “to read news and comment on three or four things“. From there to an unexpected stardom when responding to a user who claimed to have a lot of bad luck. “I replied that I did have bad luck, that where I live [vive en El Rinconcillo, una pedanía de La Carlota] There’s only one bar and the waitress is my ex-girlfriend.”
Small everyday misfortunes that became viral. “The next day 6,000 people followed me”, he comments on an overwhelming success that, however, he has not cultivated from the humorous side. “Later I realized that people were interested in life as a farmer and I began to comment on things about work and the countryside”, he confesses.
“I was surprised the number of people who did not know that pasta comes from wheat or that sugar comes from beets”, assures this rural spokesman whose 40 hectares are destined for rapeseed and, mainly, olive groves of the picual variety.
The irony is that he had no direct relationship with the olive grove, but “my family did, especially my uncles on the father’s side.” a reality that re-forged for 14 years after parking the Law and ADE career, and also leasing the family lands. “My father told me: ‘if you want to take it, take it yourself’, and that’s what I did,” he assumes.
I want a tractor to be happy
Forgive us Loquillo y los Trogloditas for versioning one of his classics, but it’s perfect to exemplify Tomy Rohde’s conversion. “I am a tractor driver and olive grower, barely 40 hectares. It is little because you almost do not get there, but if you have more you already need more people,” he warns.
“Then it happens that people think you start work at eight in the morning and leave at two in the afternoon, but really you start at five and finish at two, and then you have to put the olives in the factory, so they can give you nine at night perfectly”, he warns.
A hard job that “he saw as far away”, but that saved him from a bad personal streak, when he assures that “the situation that I found when I arrived at the field is that the nonsense is taken away from you“. A reality that in a 2022 especially cruel with the field: bad prices, transport strike, rising prices of raw materials… gains more strength.
“When you work in the fields and you are a farmer and self-employed nobody helps you. You have to learn to be alone and that helps you a lot because you see what you’re doing and that it’s going well,” he considers.
Online, manual and amateur sales
In 2020, pandemic through; Tomy came up with the idea of selling his own oil, a idea that had discarded years ago because it sums up in “I have enough with mine”, but the reality is that a call from the radio convinced him to do it.
Through an email, he decided to embark on the adventure. Five-liter bottles in pet with a self-made label in Paint and with the name of ‘Tomy’s oil’. The idea caught on again in networks, despite the fact that he, after speaking with the oil mill, claimed “not knowing if he would sell ten liters or 100”.
The reality is that he sold the entire production in one day. “I wrote everything down by hand and when I realized it had already sold about 30,000 liters“, he recalls. In 2021, already more ‘professionalized’, he had to wait a double shift at the oil mill because in order to pack he must send an estimate and, since he exceeded the requested quantity, he had to take a little longer to proceed with the orders.
“It is an oil that is worth five euros a liter at home. I could sell it more expensively, but I am not interested because I think the oil is made so that families can consume it. I don’t know if mine will be top quality because no one has tasted it professionally, but I’m very stubborn and I want it to have an affordable price so that I can live and that it can be consumed. I’m not interested in having a little bottle in a restaurant with lots of colors, and I’m not excited, “she sums up.
If you tweet, don’t drive —or yes—
With a John Deere tractor a few years old, Tomy’s way was to renew his tractor. “Banks up, benches down, I decided I had to buy a tractor,” he explains. In between, a —controlled— fondness for Jameson whiskey, of which he has made more than one mention on social networks.
Thus, like little breadcrumbs, he inadvertently came to the knowledge of the community manager of the brand, who is now a friend of Tomy himself, who also knew part of the hardships that the farmer went through with the theme of the tractor.
appears on Twitter the 10,000 likes challenge with the commitment of the brand to buy a tractor from Tomy if that figure is reached. Again a viralization and again, as if it were a Cinderella, a dream come true.
The chosen one, a Massey Ferguson tractor that Tomy calculates is worth “a total of three years’ salary” and that also obtains another guarantee from Jameson: “they have assured me that all the maintenance and changes that have to be made to the tractor will be done here, in the village”.
Jameson Original Irish Whiskey, 700ml
A true happy ending a modern tale where the colorín colorado they put the green of the olives and the amber of the whiskey.
Pictures | Tommy Rohde
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