The difference

Last night here in Canoa, someone asked me if I thought I could "make a difference" through this journey and the work I want to do. Don't think I answered the question very directly at the time, but now that I've thought about it, I really don't know if I can make a difference. Through the grace of God, I may be able do something helpful, but the important question is which side am I on.

Dario demonstrating the effects of monoculture

This week at Rio Muchacho we learned about the development and agricultural practices around the farm, and what it is doing to promote more sustainable practices. Dario, who owns the farm along with his wife Nicola, commented that in general the campesinos there are resistant to change and do not plan for their future - they mostly look ahead just to their next meal and the next weekend at the cantina. When he invited his neighbors to the farm to see and explain what they were doing after 3 years of hard work converting to organic production, they responded with something to the effect of "That's nice," then "Ciao". It was then that they knew that although it could take a generation, they needed to reach the children in order to have an effect. Since it was not possible for political reasons to change the teaching in the local public school, they decided to open their own "Escuela Ambiental" where they provide government-approved elementary school teaching for kids at mostly their expense (indirectly supported by volunteers and students like me), emphasizing an appreciation for nature and the place where they live. In constrast, the government textbooks used in public schools appear to be written for an affluent (northern?) audience. For example, in the alphabet workbooks, images associated with the letters G, S, and R are for giraffe, smog, and rifle (showing a toddler holding the gun!).

Dario also mentioned both disturbing and encouraging developments in the area. Some of the bad news is that much of the land near his farm is owned by a wealthy absentee landowner who lives in the big city Guayaquil. This owner is planning to clearcut much of this land (rare and very biodiverse transitional wet-dry forest) to plant corn, which is likely to be of a transgenic variety, which will be sold as food for factory-raised chickens. To enlist the support of local ranchers to plant the corn, they will be allowed to plant grass alongside it to feed their cattle.

Dario also referred to a form of indentured servitude imposed by the chemical and seed companies whereby campesinos are sold chemicals and seed on credit in exchange for part of their crop. However, at harvest time, the lenders complain about the quality of the crop and are willing to pay only a fraction of what they originally promised. They then tell the farmers not to worry because they can make up the debt with next year's crop so they get hooked into a vicious cycle of greater and greater debt. In this area (as in many others), there are monopolies of buyers for the locally grown crops, e.g. corn and passion fruit, contributing to further economic slavery.

Some of the good news is that when a few parents resisted the nominal fee of $2/month to send their kids to the school (though this is much less than the cost of public schools), they instituted an innovative strategy of giving each family 100 chicks at the start of the school year, with the requirement that they return 50 after they are grown. The other requirement is that the chickens be raised organically so the parents needed to learn to grow organic corn. This appears to be helping the parents and the school financially and with nutritious food, along with keeping them committed to keeping their kids in the school. In addition, the kids are challenging many of the environmentally destructive practices of their parents, which creates friction in some of the families but could possibly lead to some improvements. In some cases, families have started growing their own organic gardens as a result of what their kids have learned in the school.

This week we had the privilege of 2 days of classes taught by one of the founders of the seed guardians network of Ecuador. Among many other things, we learned that the vast majority of native seed varieties are disappearing, being patented(!), or being held in seed banks accessible only to governments and big corporations. The commonly grown varieties are much less nutritious and more vulnerable to pests, which are of course treated with toxic chemicals. This is a major threat to our food supply, nutrition and freedom from economic control by the agribusiness powers that be.

At the escuela ambiental

In the garden

Canoa, Ecuador