This morning, the group spent their time on a tour of Rancho Verde’s organic farm. Not only did we see many different plants, but at each new species we paused to learn about the plant’s essential role in the jungle and in the lives of the family that lives on the farm. Our tour leader Sandro spoke much about the importance of biodynamicism. As a primary farmer of the area, he works hard to avoid monocultures –spaces of land with only one species of plant– to create a fully organic and self-sustaining farm. For example, coffee, vanilla, oranges, and cacao are all planted in the same area, and the plants “communicate” with each other to produce coffee with a fruity flavor and cacao with hints of vanilla.
The necessity of interactions between species was underscored by something Sandro mentioned at the start of our tour. Gesturing to his binoculars and his machete, he told us, “This is the future of Costa Rica.” The machete serves to harvest produce and clear out crops, and the binoculars show him which areas of land need to be cultivated differently or need to be saved.
This balance of ultimately achieved through an individual’s commitment to an overachieving, long-term future condition. As explained by Sandro, maintaining an organic farm requires patience and passion. These two themes are what the group needs to act with, both during our time in Costa Rica and once we leave; otherwise the work we do here will not be genuine enough to last a long time.
Many times this morning, the group met our role-models of this strategy of individual and group, patience and passion: leaf-cutter ants. Each ant alone is forgettable, and can never hope to cultivate enough mushrooms to sustain a colony in a forest. But many ants together, each with a very small task that wholeheartedly commit to, can build an essential support system to keep their land fertile and thriving.