IN MEMORIAM
Six years ago today (24 September 2019), after a long illness, we lost Enrique García Martín, one of the greatest promoters that rural or alternative poultry farming has ever had in Spain and one of the founding members of AviAlter, the Spanish Association of Alternative Poultry Farming.
ALTERNATIVE POULTRY FARMING LOSES ONE OF ITS LEADING PROMOTERS: ENRIQUE GARCÍA MARTÍN
José A. Castelló (September 2019)
I met Enrique García at one of the last courses taught by my father, Federico Castelló, in Barcelona in the late 1950s. Although I barely got to know him at the time, something about him must have caught my attention, because after my father’s sudden passing in 1973, I immediately thought of him as a collaborator, given the responsibility I had taken on in directing the Real Escuela de Avicultura — partly for teaching purposes and partly for the inherent commercial activity.
And so Enrique began working at the School, partly as a lecturer in certain subjects — principally broiler production — and in various practical classes, and partly in an external capacity, in the promotion and publicity of the journal “Selecciones Avícolas”.
Enrique García’s previous experience in poultry farming had been working at the San Isidro Agricultural Cooperative of the Catalan Agricultural Institute of that name, alongside veterinarian Narciso Marcé, on visits to its members. At the same time, he was collaborating with veterinarian Carlos Aldea, who at the time was representing the prestigious Kimber laying hen in Spain, to broaden his knowledge in the laying sector, which in the preceding years had been developing spectacularly in Spain.
The 18 years spent with Enrique García sitting in the office next to mine at the School, before he decided in 1991 to set up on his own with the founding of his company Proavial, were highly revealing of his capacity and aptitude for taking on the multiple responsibilities of his work. As a teacher, his dedication to the School’s students deserves special mention, particularly in the practical classes on the School’s farm and in the dissertation projects they prepared, in whose development he was wholly committed.
An active member of the organising committee of “Expoavícola” — later “Expoaviga” — from its inception in 1975, Enrique was an effective driving force throughout its entire existence, dedicating himself in its later editions particularly to what had by then become his great passion: so-called “alternative poultry farming”.
Indeed, at the helm of his own company, Enrique devoted himself fully to the promotion of this type of poultry farming, becoming a true pioneer and authority in the field. Thus, in the 1990s he would become our principal collaborator in the courses on the various facets of alternative poultry farming that we began to deliver at the School — the embryo of the future Professional Conferences that we would later hold at other venues across the country.
His vocation for these types of production reached its culmination in 2006 with the founding of AviAlter — very largely his own idea — to bring together all those interested in promoting the rearing of all those poultry species distinct from “industrial” broilers and laying hens. Wholly committed to it, he could almost be regarded as the “father” of its founding statutes, and served as its first Secretary until, for health reasons, he was forced to step back from virtually all his activities a few years ago.
In summary, the integrity with which Enrique approached all his work, his knowledge of the subjects he covered as a consultant, his enthusiasm and dedication to work done well, and his aptitude as a writer and author of numerous projects are, we believe, unique qualities in the person who has now left us after a long illness. To Pilar, his wife, his two daughters and his four grandchildren, he will surely have left an indelible mark.