finca sarita

I was asked by Andy at Yanapuma to write up a brief report about my trip out to the finca orgánica sarita with the Bua cacao producers for the Yanapuma newsletter. Though Andy wanted a few hundred words or less (super corto), my first draft was of course all of 900 words (un poquito demasiado largo...). Still, I thought I'd share it with you all because it's a good summary of what we did at the Finca, which was one of my favorite adventures here. I'm pasting it below.

We left early Saturday morning from Bua to Santo Domingo where we hopped on a bus to Chone, in the Manabí province. Giovanny, the Yanapuma agricultural specialist in Bua, Alfonso, Rafael, Wilson and Daniel, all cacao producers in Bua, and I all arrived in Chone a bit tired from the trip and from the parade and separate dance contest that the Tsáchilas had participated in the night before. In Chone we caught another bus to Calceta, where we quickly hopped in the back of a pick-up truck to grab a ride into Sarampión, where the Finca Orgánica Sarita is located. We arrived and two dogs, Mátalo and Túmbalo and Servio greeted us warmly with a lunch made entirely from produce and products from the organic finca. Eating organically was a new experience for the producers we came with; before arriving, we had had to clarify the definition of organic as being produced without chemicals. When I was in the finca with another producer helping to harvest his cacao and asked him if it was an organic finca, he replied that it was “almost organic” because he only used “a few” chemicals. The exposure to this new world of agriculture was the most valuable experience we took away.
Aside from feeding us more than enough food, Servio showed us his family’s array of sustainable projects. First we saw the efficient wood burning “rocket stove” that produces very little smoke while heating up quickly, and then marveled over two greywater filtration systems that filter kitchen and laundry waste water through natural rocks, sand and aquatic plants. We compared his ecological toilet to the baño secos already in use in Bua, and we took turns riding the bike connected to a battery to supply backup power. Finally, Servio showed us his “goat tractor”- goats that eat weeds and plants, clearing the area. We relaxed in his all-natural bamboo cabins (mine 10 meters high in a tree!), and regrouped to snack on mandarins and learn about the lunar phases that should be considered before making agricultural decisions. All but one of the Tsáchila admitted to not knowing or considering the lunar phases, though they quickly made the connection and said that they would go back and prune their cacao trees, an appropriate task considering we had just learned that we were in a waning moon. We finished up the day eating more food, and even making crude chocolate from toasted cacao beans, sweetening it with panela, an unrefined sugar product made from pressing the sugar cane and boiling the juice until it reaches just the right consistency to cool (we watched and learned about the panela production process the next day!).
The next day the Tsáchila all helped to make Biól, a natural fertilizer and insect repellent, and we visited a local organic cacao finca. Servio showed us all the importance of pruning the cacao trees to allow for ideal light and shade ratios, and each of the Tsáchila again learned by taking a machete to the unnecessary branches of a tree. They all murmured among themselves again that they were going to go back to their fincas and prune, having seen the benefits in the amount of cacao fruits that a pruned tree produced.
The best experience came on our last day when Servio took us all down to meet a technician friend of his who works for Anecacao, the Ecuadorian union of cacao exporters. He was able to answer questions about cacao types and separation (important to keep the aromatic, high quality nacional cacao separated so it can fetch the higher prices it deserves) and showed us some cacao plants that had been grafted with branches from trees that had already proven to be productive, a process we had learned the day before. Finally, we went to a centro de acopio, or a collection center. This one had been certified organic by GTZ and certified fair trade by FLO, and a cooperative of cacao producers bring their cacao en baba, or still wrapped in the sweet pulpy covering, here to be bought by the centro. This eliminates the more technical step of fermenting and drying the beans that can often be done poorly, lowering the price the producers can receive for their cacao.
An employee showed us around, but the most impressive moment was when he showed us all the new electric pruning tools that the cooperative had just bought. With their fair trade certification, the producers earn a guaranteed minimum $1600 per metric ton (useful in a fluctuating cacao market) plus an additional $150 that is their fair trade premium, set aside for communal benefits and not dispersed individually but benefiting everyone. From their separate account, the farmers had bought these tools, and the producers I was with were duly impressed. Seeing the tangible benefits of the fair trade and organic certification seemed to act as the chispa, or spark, that was needed. Their excitement grew, and it was as though they could see a glimpse of their futures with better agricultural practices and a stronger communal organization. After another filling lunch, we climbed into the back of another truck, and began our trip back to Bua, heads filled not with dreams of sugarplum fairies but of an organization of cacao producers with cacao trees producing the finest cacao mazorcas, fetching prices high above market averages.