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Managing a Small Farm in Nicaragua

As I write this afternoon, I nibble from an avocado, newly harvested from my 8 manzana farm which is beautifully situated at the foot of Mombacho Volcan on Monte Verde. This is no standard avocado. It is close to one pound in weight (even accounting for the palm-sized scoop that a squirrel enjoyed) and with flesh that is so creamy and scrumptious. It is also the ONLY harvestable avocado the squirrels left for me. From at least nine magnificent mature trees, this is what I have produced!

And, the mangos are huge this year and the crop hangs heavy from my many trees which have a girth of 3-4 feet or more. My cuiador, Louis, with my consent, invited a local woman to harvest the green mangos. As I arrive today, traveling from my Granada home via taxi to the Cemetery, bus to Monte Verde and then Tuk tuk to my farm, two local families are busy bagging the mangos. They have been at work since daylight. With five babies to attend to, how did they manage to climb the trees, drop the mangos, gather them into the horse cart, haul them to this opening on my farm and create this small mountain of fruit by noon? I watch as they sort and bag the fruit. It is a tough year for mangos. As as soon as they show the slightest sweetening, a nasty wasp injects her eggs and the whole mango turns to gooey mush beneath the pimple-like wound. I can see the wasp nests hanging like pendulums high and far from the trunks in the mango trees. You’d have to cut the whole tree down to reach/ destroy the nest and likely be stung to death in the process.

Two women and two men circle the green mango mountain. They are carefully sorting – to be sure no wasp has visited any fruit and bagging the good ones – counting to 300 mangos before they literally stitch the now 150 lb. bags closed. After sorting out the wounded mangos, the mountain they had created yields only 6 bags – 1800 mangos for which they will pay the going rate for 300 mangos in July, 45 cords per bag or 270 cords (that’s less than $10.00) for my whole crop!

I inquire where she is taking the mangos and she tells me with a exuberant smile across her 26 year-old face that she is going home with her load of adults and 5 kids and the bagged mangos (900 lbs.) – all in her tiny cart pulled by one tiny horse – which is a mile down the road towards the lake. Then, tomorrow, she’ll connect horse to cart and carry on to the end of Monte Verde Rd. where the Managua bus will stop and bus driver’s helper will load the hefty mango bags onto the roof of the bus charging 20 cords per bag (180 cords for six bags) and she will pay 25 cords for her own passage (and 25 cords to return) and carry on to Managua. She’s spending 170 cords to bring the fruit to the market plus 270 cords she paid us for mangos for a total expense of 440 cords ($15.00).

In Managua, the merchants at the market will pay her 60 cords per bag. If you do the math, she is will experience a LOSS of almost 15 cords for every bag. She is LOSING 80 cords ($2.90) for her enterprise. Imagine the added LOSS if I assigned any value to her time or the time of the three other adults who have worked with her through the day today. Then there is the time-value to the whole day it will require for her to load the mangos on the bus and get to Managua, find buyers ( hopefully ) in the vast mercado and return home to Monte Verde.

Why does she expend all that energy (to receive a negative return)? She tells me it is because she needs food to eat. What is she thinking? Is she thinking? Then, I hold up a mirror:

Seven years ago I purchased my farm intending to operate it 1) as a nature center for Granada school children and 2) to generate income for my clean water programs from my crop production. With wasps, squirrels, theft and a swamped market for ripe fruit depressing prices when mine is ready to pick and sell, my “losses” mount every year and I’m no closer to achieving my goals in buying the farm. It does not make sense, but it is just what we want to do.

Then there is Luis, my cuiador, who works 10 hour days – 300 hrs. per month or $.36 per hour, cultivating, trimming, repairing fencing and keeping my 14 acre farm spotlessly “clean” – the term for cutting the woody weeds – with a single machete. Despite his aching back, he tells me he is very happy and content.

Three people who are, somehow, happy with what they think the farm brings to them.

It brings me awareness of complexities and challenges of food production, the pleasure in knowing and working with my cuiador and his family, fascination in the number crunching mystery of subsistence farm culture and the agro marketplace and finally…the luxury of having a place amid the fresh air and communidad on Monte Verde. All that makes it worthwhile today and I hold out hope for tomorrow!

Leslie Warren         [email protected]