Tierra

"This coffee is going to the United States!¨ Francisco was glowing with pride. I spent the better part of five hours that morning picking coffee with Francisco on his farm. His entire family participated, which included his wife, Maritza, and his children: Jose 17, Jalitza 15, David 12, and Estefanie 4 - she wasn´t quite as helpful, but she was eager. The process was really beautiful especially when I was able to push aside the coffee-picking stories of spiders that give you huge welts or make you temporarily go blind or the snake bites that send you to the hospital or the catapillars that give you a mean sting. Such tales found little opportunity in my thoughts that morning, as my head filled with the constant Spanish conversation of the entire family and my hands raced to pick as fast as I could - I definately only had Estafanie beat in speed. The job seemed somewhat daunting as we raced through maybe one third of a hectare and the plants stretched across 5 hectares in total. Red is the color of ripe, but the season was early yet, so, like in most agriculture, we picked yellow to red. Some plants had to be thoroughly searched to find a few ripe beans, while others were dripping in red. When the rain began to fall at 11:30 I realized that we would never ´finish´this task. We walked to the house in a steady shower at 12; it was difficult to pass the large clusters of red. The family would return after lunch, but with the rains many of the ripe beans would fall, especially if not picked today - how could they pick everything?

A lot of things poured through my mind that morning with Francisco´s family. His son, Jose, loved working on the farm and was Francisco´s right hand man in every project. He went to school on the weekends and at night so that he could work in the field during the day. He would graduate in December and was planning on going to a university to study criminal justice. Although he hoped to find a job close to home afterwards and have a farm of his own, I wondered how altered Francisco´s life would be without him. I suppose David would step up to fill the gap, and then after that? Was it so different from American farm faimlies? Maritza worked in the field as well, which was different for Costa Rican households. I admired her for having such a large family and taking care of them and working hard outdoors. I wanted every person who says that women belong in the house taking care of their children and home to see her example. This ´house-bound´role for women is accepted here by men and women.

For large amounts of time Francisco talked to me about organic verse sustainable agriculture and how he produced very high quality products that on a rare occassion needed chemicals to prevent disease. He told me that there is no such thing as bad soil, only bad farmers. As he said that to me, I was struggling to keep my balance on the steep graded hill that his coffee was planted on. The ground was wet and incredibly slippery, since the soil here was mostly fine clay that had poor nutrient retaining qualities. His coffee plants did look healthy though and the row crops that he grew rested in rich, black soil that he had built up with compost over the years. He was a good farmer.

Markets drove the workers here like in the rest of the world. Farmers learned to diversify their crops after the coffee crisis that devastated a lot families. Francisco grows over 30 different crops on his land other than coffee and all of them can be sold at different times as the market changes, but they always provide his family with food. Currently, coffee sold to America is his largest income. The other farmer that I work with, William, is glad to be out of the coffee business and only grows and sells row crops. My project with him is helping him start hydroponic lettuce, which Francisco says is for people without soil.

The people in this place are hard workers and take pride in their work, but simultaneously work in a more relaxed state. The ´pura vida´attitude is engaging and I´m glad to get a taste of it. I wish that more people in America could put these faces behind the products they purchase. Every piece of food that is consumed was grown sustainably or insustainably by a farmer or a corporation. Coffee is the second largest commodity that is traded in the world and most people choose cheap coffee that is destroying the land and lining the pockets of incredibly wealthy corporate individuals, as the farmers that produce it can barely feed their families and do not have the diverse crops to supplement their needs. Every choice we make is supporting something and in America we have the choice thanks to consumerism to support something good. Products that are certified Fair Trade mean that the farmers who grew them receive a fair price, that´s how Francisco is able to make money off of his small sustainable farm and not be another victum of NAFTA´s ¨free¨ entirely injust trade.