This week I am in Brazil with my good friend Abe Bicksler and nine UI-ACES students. The Sustainability Spring Break Study Trip is being hosted by Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza, a diversified organic coffee plantation, near the town of Mococa. Here we are learning first-hand about sustainability, and developing ideas for potential research projects that will help the owners of FAF realize their vision of a truly sustainable farm.
Abe's birthday present
Abram coined the phrase “sustainable experience” a day or two ago. It captures what we were hoping for this trip — first-hand experience that internalizes what sustainability really means. Honestly, we could not have picked a better place for a sustainable experience. The farm, and Marcos and Silvia’s passionate approach to it’s management is an emerging picture of sustainability. Diversity is everywhere. Every day has been different and new. I’ve seen hundreds of butterflies. Of those I’ve seen up close, no two were alike. Bird calls, every day there’s one I had not heard before. Still haven’t seen a toucan.
This morning we rushed through breakfast and headed down to cheese making 102 (yesterday was 101). We tied knots in long strings of steaming hot cheese stuff, then it was put into cool water harden. Later it was cut
up and seasoned with herbs and olive oil. We gobbled it down this evening before dinner. The rest was tucked into forms of provolone. It didn’t take long, but everyone was able to participate.
After another cup of coffee we piled into the back of a truck and followed the back roads to a neighboring farm. Renato de Mattos Ribeiro’s family has been around since the mid-1700s. Now Renato is having to change
some things. He’s an agronomist by training who for most of his life ran the large conventional coffee plantation by the book. Now he seems to be in the process of morphing into an ecologist. He showed us his extensive seedling production and planting of a native hardwood Brazilian tree called Guanandi. Renato chose this species because it has the same properties as mohogany, but grows much faster. When I say fast, I’m talking about tree time. Renato is growing these trees to eventually sell for high quality lumber, the kind of stuff with which fine furniture is made. Renato is thinking long-term sustainability. It will take 18 to 20 years before the trees will be ready to cut. He’s also preserving primary and secondary Atlantic Rain Forest on his properties, and he talk passionately about the benefits of diversity. Renato is also in the process of building new housing for his workers. We saw both the new houses
and the old.
Renato Ribeiro
Why are Renato, Marcos and Silvia, and all these other farmers doing these things? The reasons we are hearing sound all too familiar. Coffee in Brazil is like corn in the US. It’s a commodity that makes alot of money for
a lot of people, unless you’re the farmer growing the crop. Time after time on this trip we’ve heard the same stories that we hear in Illinois — can’t make any money raising [enter commodity mono-crop here] anymore.
Have to do something different. “Different” means diversify, reduce costs, find a niche, develop a market, remove the middleman, sell direct, add value, etc, or all of the above. These are hard times and even farmers
like Renato are looking for new answers.
on-farm hydro power
Back at our own fazenda we ate lunch and gathered in the livingroom of the big house to look at GIS generated maps of the farm’s springs and creeks. It’s work Silvia has had done by Dr. Louis Nery in order to comply with governmental laws designed to protect Brazil’s natural resources. Natural buffers must be maintained around all bodies of water. In addition, land with a slope of 45 degrees or more must be left in a natural state. In addition to that land, another 20 percent of the farm must also be set aside. The 20 percent can be determined by the farmer, but once the plan for all this is submitted to the government, it cannot be changed. She and Dr. Nery explained all this, and we gained some important insight into just how involved the Brazilian government is in the country’s agriculture, and how serious they are about protecting the water resources in the country side. At times, the rules for protecting the environment make it difficult for farmers who are already struggling to farm profitably.
After dinner, which included an incredible passion fruit dessert, a group of us went for a night hike. We stayed on the farm’s roads because we were warned about snakes in the forest. We were hoping to see some
nocturnal wildlife, but the main event turned out to be the night sky. Super clear air and no city light pollution made for spectacular star gazing. Finally found the southern cross, which is four stars shaped more
like a diamond than a cross.
Tomorrow (March 26) is Abram’s birthday. He’ll be 29.
1 Comment
June 26, 2009 at 2:27 pm
May I use your on-farm hydropower slide for a presentation about sustainable farm energy?
Thanks,
Sue