Global Experience
Thoughts before...
Smelling sweet lemongrass organically grown on the farm.
In a team of 10, we made our way up the mountains of Perez Zeledon to the beautiful La Gran Vista Agroecological Farm, managed by Señor Donald Villalobos and his wife Xenia. There we spent a week, cooking and eating meals with them, sleeping in their home, and working alongside them in the fields. Señor Donald in turn explained the challenges for Costa Rica currently in applying sustainable farming techniques, water conservation and preventing soil erosion.
He taught us how to create a compost heap that used aerobic processing to enrich soil for instance. We also gathered and mixed the ingredients to create "EM" microbial mats that were anaerobic and could be added to the garden beds as organic fertilizer. We labored over square holes dug into a slope as a simple, physical barrier to soil erosion when rain falls. All the while, I noticed my Spanish improving rapidly and myself developing a strong love for rice, beans, and especially picadillo de chayote y maíz dulce.
What we did...
I had signed up for this trip through UF's Florida Alternative Breaks program to learn about Agroecology - although many of my courses discussed food insecurity, environment, and sustainable agriculture as major challenges consistent globally, I wanted to see for myself what those solutions would look like on the ground, in country. I wanted to go beyond all of the theory and to actually work on a farm alongside the peoples of that country. I wanted to learn the techniques that they had tested and found worked and the types of challenges that they faced day to day, while immersed in Costa Rica's environment and cultural nuances. I hoped that this would give me the type of understanding of people and ways of life different from mine that a textbook could never teach.
Spring Break 2017: Florida Alternative Breaks La Gran Vista, Costa Rica
Here's us mixing the components for EM by hand. We've gathered natural microbes found in the topsoil and decomposing organic matter from the forest and added molasses, rice flour, and water. After mixing, we'll shovel it into a sealed barrel, tamping it down to remove the oxygen, and allow the microbes to ferment anaerobically.
It smells a bit like kombucha :)
Doug and I are recycling empty coffee bean husks into our compost heap. We've layered green leaves plucked from trees, heaps of horse and cow manure that we shoveled in, hay, and water. We'll later cover it with plastic sacks and allow it to heat up to start the composting process.
After digging perfectly rectangular and consistent sized holes all afternoon, we are exhausted. These holes must be rectangular with high, straight walls to collect rushing water from rain fall and combat soil erosion.
Thoughts after...
I came back physically stronger and mentally more empathetic for sure. I learned so much about Costa Rican people and culture as well as simple sustainable farming techniques that could be applied globally. I will definitely miss my team- cooking with them, practicing our broken Spanish together, joking over meals, and accidentally shoveling dirt on each other. I think this trip really emphasized the air of cooperation and willingness to teach and to learn that allows global learning to succeed. We practiced teamwork and exchange quite literally in doing farmwork together- why does this not also apply on a larger scale internationally? Though it was only a week, this trip has given me so much more wisdom that I plan to use in my future work in international development.