Panamanian Adventures: Chiriquí

On one of our afternoons off.. (Photo Credit Caroline Morrow)

Our 3rd class was called "Sustained Tropical Agriculture". We went on a week long field trip to the western province of Chiriqui where we visited different farms everyday. It was my first class about agriculture.. regardless of your field, it is always interesting to learn more about where your food comes from! Speaking of which, check out the documentary "Forks over Knives": interesting science and arguments behind switching to a whole foods plant-based diet.

The first farm we visited in Santiago gave us an overview of the conventional large-scale farm. This 6000 hectares farm mainly grows sugarcane. We were also able to visit the processing plant.. and in one room saw a pile of sugar maybe 3-4 stories high, worth $5 million !!

I had to write a whole paper on organic fertilizers for this class but I guess I will just mention here a few interesting alternative agricultural systems that we learned about..

The Lo Tuyo farm in Las Lajas is trying to get more farmers to eliminate chemical fertilizers... they work as an intermediary between farmers nearby that are looking to go organic by processing their local organic products and then selling them to different places in Panama City.

A cashew fruit! The seed at the top is corrosive, you have to burn it to be able to extract the cashew nut safely.

Lechería Dora Mimi uses a "biodigestion" system to manage their pig waste to avoid using synthetic fertilizer. Microorganisms carry out anaerobic fermentation and menthanogenisis to create methane while the liquid biproduct of this process is then used as a fertilizer sprayed onto their crop fields. The methane is used to power generators on their farm. The technology is quite cheap and saves them $10,000 a year on fertilizer and electricity.

At Finca Esperanza, they create their own organic fertilizer through vermicompost. The cow excrement is piled in beds where the worms break down and feed off the material to create soil after 2-6 months. Through this process, the owner is saving 100,000 to 150,000 a year on fertilizer!

A few words on Aquaponics.. I had heard of this system only by name. We were lucky enough to see it first hand in Boquete at Finca Saleh. It is a sustainable food production system: Fish (often Tilapia are used because they are quite resistant and thrive on stress) feed off naturally created algae in a tank. The water that is full of their excrement then goes through beds of plants and crops. The plants feed off of the nutrients from the Tilapia excrement and minerals from the rocks in the beds. Through this process, the water is then filtered and cleaned and returned to the Tilapia tank. You can also include chickens in the process that would defecate in the fish tank to add nutrients into the system to promote the growth of algae. This, however, would be more useful in temperate climates where algae does not grow as easily. They paid only $5000 for a 30x15 m greenhouse with 800 fish ! They save $40 a week on groceries.

Many people have turned their pool into their own aquaponics system: www.gardenpool.com