Our first day back from Las Alturas, we spent the morning visiting Don Roberto, a farmer that lives about 20 minutes away from Las Cruces. We went in two groups so that we could get a more intimate experience at the farm, and split based on Spanish ability so that our professors wouldn't have to translate everything twice. I was on the fence about which group to go in, but the advanced Spanish group had fewer people signed up for it, so I decided to go with them to try to even out the numbers. So, when we toured Don Roberto's farm, our whole talk was entirely in Spanish. I was a little nervous that I would be totally clueless since my Spanish is still rusty, but I think I understood about 80% of everything he said, so I was pleased in the end.
Don Roberto owns a small farm, but grows a variety of crops. When we first arrived, he demonstrated how to extract the juice from sugarcane, which you can drink straight or ferment into cacique, a sweet liquor that is common in Costa Rica. We got to try the cane juice, but most of us thought it was a little too sweet to drink as is. According to Don Roberto's wife, he drinks about 4 liters of cane juice a day when he is working in the fields. Since it is basically just sugar water, I'm sure it keeps you energized!
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| Don Roberto (right) extracting juice from sugarcane, with his wife straining it and catching it in a pot. |
Don Roberto also grows a good deal of coffee, and showed us every step in raising, harvesting, and preparing it. It was pretty cool to see in person, especially since we had been learning about coffee in our classes.
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| Don Roberto showing us the different size coffee seedlings. |
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| Separating coffee beans from the skin surrounding them. |
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| Coffee beans drying in the sun. |
At the bottom of his plot of land, Don Roberto keeps some forest. While he is not receiving Environmental Services Payments (which we have also been learning about in classes), he preserves forest on his farm voluntarily. He talked a lot about how his involvement with a co-op changed his perspective on farming (he now uses minimal pesticides and herbicides, and composts to cut down fertilizer needs) as well as conservation in general. He used to use the forested land to graze cattle, but about 18 years ago decided to let the area regenerate naturally. Now it is a nice patch of secondary forest, which helps protect the watershed and provide habitat for animals. It was really interesting to hear how his perspective had changed over time and how important he felt that maintaining a balanced and well-informed personal mindset is on allowing people to both make a living and be environmentally conscious.
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| A field of beans |
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