Rain drops glide off of the dark green, waxy leaves of the cacao trees. Surrounding these treasured trees stand much larger trees that billow over the cacao trees providing shade. In between cacao cultivars, grows a tree raised for making wooden fermentation boxes where the cacao will rest in five to six months. The fruits, differing in color and shape, are full of spots and abrasions and are almost invisible to the untrained eye.
I turn to Juan, my new Ecuadorian friend, and ask him if the whole cacao farm is organic. He nods, as we move from tree to tree snipping the blackened fruits covered with fungus. He tells me that it isn’t that difficult to grow cacao with organic practices. As he points to the holes in the hard, husk of the cacao fruit and the large chunk taken out by an armadillo, he explains that the cocoa seed remains healthy and is very resilient. Our boots sink into the saturated forest floor as we move down the rows seeking the ‘frutas malas’. Crouching down and quickly counting the good fruits for data collection, Juan’s precision and ownership as a first year student is remarkable and the feeling of being a part of this mission resonates with me for the rest of the morning. As I move through the trees, observing the different colored fruits and striations of the bark, I am reminded of the permaculture principle that highlights observing nature from its details to its patterns. It appears that so much of what the student’s do here at EARTH is to work from the details to patterns in their course of study, working closely with a perennial crop but then stepping back and looking at the patterns in nature and how the system functions as a whole. Every cacao farm will be different, just as every spider’s web is unique to its situation, but the system of agroforestry can be an educational tool for students as they learn the larger political and economic issues surrounding this crop.
Having this experience helped me form a context for our class led by Profesor Luis Pocosangre, a specialist in Costa Rican perennial crops, including bananas and cacao. Staring at the varying sizes and shapes displayed in front of me, I thought that the professor was going to explain to us the different growth stages of the fruit. However, he explains that the banana crop, Musas acuminata, has been cultivated from two wild banana species Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. And although we usually only ever see one, uniform type of banana in our U.S. grocery stores, there are 1210 banana cultivars with different genotypes at The Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza or CATIE).
Banana production in Costa Rica requires over 60 separate applications of chemicals and in total this system of inputs costs $100,542,500 each year. The environmental and public health issues are grave and many farmers or laborers can’t reach economic sustainability. Professor Pocosangre explains that cacao farmers in this region use more agroforestry systems that don’t require as many inputs as bananas. In actuality, the clearing of the trees would disrupt the production of cacao, as the plants rely on insects for pollination. Dr. Pocosangre paints a clear picture of the economic barriers for cacao farmers throughout this country. Most farmers receive $1.00/1lb. for the dried cacao they produce. However, Cacao Gourmet, a cocoa farmer cooperative in Upsala, Costa Rica, has had success selling their dried cacao at a premium price of $5/1lb.
Although these crops vary drastically in their environmental, economic, and cultural impacts, EARTH University presents both of these crops in their educational model as challenges for students to address through practice and study. Currently, EARTH is working to produce a small manual for cocoa farmers to set up agroforestry systems like the one that we worked in on campus that allow them to also achieve economic sustainability and preserve the culture of their farming practices. Likewise, EARTH has implemented various innovative practices to demonstrate how banana production can be shifted towards an alternative, more sustainable model. Through practices like applying their own, non-chemical garlic pepper spray as insecticide to applying a fertilizer that is made with cacao husks, and recycling the plastic bags that cover the bananas, the campus serves as a living laboratory that can utilize their practices to support farmers facing the same environmental, economic, and cultural challenges. By focusing on cacao and banana production in detail in the classroom and viewing the patterns that occur in a ripple effect from the campus farm out to regional farms, this model of educating continues to intrigue me and motivate me to explore the how EARTH students learn about global agriculture every day.
-Gianna Fazioli, Masters of Food Studies Candidate
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