Who will grow the food?

Farmer’s Markets are a huge deal in Washington State with virtually one in every town and the most famous being Pike Place Market, the longest continuous running market in the country. But the growing season for greens and berries is short, so most of us have freezers in the garage. We also have the benefit of having our grocery stores stocked with local organic produce, including Costco. The San Jose area has numerous farmer’s markets (ferias) with the most spectacular one in Grecia. Even lowly Cobano has a produce store and a farmer’s market on Saturdays. It is the only way we buy produce from May-October, then we depend on Chile for fruit, with the exception of apples.

fools is an understatement. i saw one program where a 10 year old didn’t have a clue where eggs came from.

my grandparents and parents always had big gardens. it’s just what they did so i grew up eating homegrown food, and i want to carry on that tradition.

[quote=”2BNCR”]Who will grow the food?

When I pod and pads, internet biz and tech industry rules every part of our lives, not just most of it, who will grow the food? [/quote]

Some of us will refuse to let the electronics rule our lives. I grew up on a 2 ½ acre “farm” where we learned to repair what was broken. It wasn’t convenient to go to town for everything you need. The family raised a couple of hogs, 200 chickens and grew a garden every year during those years (1950-1962). Since the 1950’s I have been accustomed to the T.V. and the music and appreciate the advances in playback devices. I swore I would never own a cell phone in my previous life but now carry one. I have a computer (desktop) but have no other network devices nor the need to be connected 24/7 and I have no idea how these things work.

[quote=”2BNCR”]We live in a tiny nation. It has a new thread running through it stitching together North, Central, and South Americans, Chinese, and Costa Ricans. The thread is change. Wow, the changes are happening so fast. This country was slow to change; resisting change like a child resisting the dentist. New world-class stadium, new progressive values challenging traditional values, teens wanting office jobs, and less wanting an agricultural lifestyle. Cars and more cars, crime and more crime; physical labor is out. Sitting and poking the pad on your phone our keyboard is in. More return for less physical exertion. Doesn’t sound any different then perhaps where you live right? [/quote]

Where have you been all your life? Have you not seen the changes coming? Globalization is a fact with people becoming more mobile with the passage of time. It was inevitable that Costa Rica would want to modernize and I see no problem with a new stadium with the national enthusiasm for futbol. I do have a problem with the inferior Chinese imports which is making it harder to find quality tools and other items. Although there has been an increase in automobile traffic I believe that the phrase should be “motos and more motos” with the idiots who do not know the rules of the road and insist on passing a line of cars on a blind curve. We have a little over an acre of land and have begun planting fruit trees of all varieties that will grow here for our own consumption. We have a garden and raise chickens for eggs and meat.

Of crime we see very little. That is a product of the cities where people do not know each other and care little for the problems of their fellow man. Here where the population is more sparse we depend on each other and we watch out for each other.

[quote=”2BNCR”]Eventually there will be less and less of us who want to grow the food. Could we be happy spending time growing our own food? Sure we could grow food almost anywhere in Costa Rica, but would we? Would you spend time growing a garden? [/quote]

A family of nine Ticos lives with us and luckily one of the boys (age 12) is very interested in the agricultural life. He is hard working and I depend on him for help with maintaining the property and animals. With the other boys I do see a “how little can I do and how much can I get” attitude but I saw that with my own children until they reached an age when they realized that it was necessary to work for a living. Read up on the history of agriculture in the U.S. where barely 3% live the agricultural life as did 100 years ago.

As an adult I worked within the confines of cities and yearned for a return to the country life. Now that I am retired I have what I have wanted, I love it and I am doing it. I also know that when I am gone there will be a young man who appreciates the life and will have learned what I have to teach.

[quote=”2BNCR”]Why would anybody want to live an agricultural lifestyle? Tying oneself to the land has been a world tradition since day one. Growing food, farming, acting to the rhythms of nature to produce crops is primal. [/quote]

It is for the satisfaction of seeing things grow and for the satisfaction of growing the vegetables that we had available in the U.S. that are normally not available here.

[quote=”2BNCR”]As I witness and reflect upon the countryside, I so cherish in this volcanic wonderland, I see happy faces running alongside winding roads and green hills that wonder of into the sun seem endless. Then I drive into the concrete caverns of the capital and the difference is well apparent: no more smiles. A lot more stuff with a lot less smiles makes you wonder why so many of us think evolving into technical wizardry is advancement of the human being. [/quote]

Your association with the city is with the downtown area. Move into the neighborhoods and see the smiles and the neighborliness. Do you not remember the differences in the U.S. or is it possible that you did not associate with the suburban or rural life there. The problem isn’t with the advances in technology, it is the nature of the commercial life in the cities. When I visit the local ferreteria I am welcomed there with smiles and called by name, not so in the city.

[quote=”2BNCR”]Was Timothy Leary really right when he said “tune in, turn on and drop out?” Did the LSD society give his profound message a bad taste without anyone really going deeper than the wrapper? [/quote]

Leary was right but it did not require chemicals to be aware. You have to experience the rural life to be tuned into it and you may or may not be turned on to it. The dropping out part of his advocacy is to turn your back on the structured life of the work-a-day and staying up with the Jones’s.

[quote=”2BNCR”]The social contrast of Costa Rica country living compared to city life is obvious. The country folk are genuine and unhurried. So is less really more, or is more really less? [/quote]

It is not the social contrast that is the difference, it is the business contrast that is the difference. The farmers life is lived at the pace of the plants growing while the retailers life is lived at the pace of the number of sales. So for the farmer the pace is slower while the work is more physically taxing, for the retailer the pace is faster and the work less physically taxing.

[quote=”2BNCR”]It’s hard for me to say as I come from consumerism. Although it is too late for me to convert to country living tied to the land in a way that comes as second nature, my children live with those attached to the land. The consistent and predictable changes bring a sense of adventure and sanity, predictability that things change, and a confidence that those changes are within reasons. Here in the country it is not change for the sake of change but following a logical natural progression of differences that repeat themselves known as nature. How much of the natural world do you find in a city? Change is abundant in the city, but how much of it is natural? [/quote]

I dare say you will not find an expat in Costa Rica who was a farmer in the U.S. It is not in the nature of the farmer to uproot. As to the rest of us, we are all consumers. Very few will turn to “doing it yourself” but there are a few who will. Plant a tomato and watch it grow, plant a tree and watch it grow. It is not being tied to the land, it is embracing it. By planting the tomato you may find that you don’t have to “convert” you might find yourself slipping into something that is satisfying. Encourage your children to find out what farm life is like.

[quote=”2BNCR”]A recovering consumer choosing to raise my child here in the countryside so she may at least have a chance and a choice as to who will grow the food and to appreciate those who farm for more than their produce, but for who they are and their cultural values. Simpletons you may think. Maybe. But simple does not mean easy, just as those who have mastered simple living are incomprehensible to those of us who find living in country to be boring and predictable; hard to do. We can figure out a complicated computer software program but a natural program that rewards us with strong bodies and healthy minds seems out of reach. Not so here in the countryside, where smiles abound and ox carts are in no particular hurry. [/quote]

No one is a recovering consumer, it is in the nature of man to consume. If it were not so the earth would not be in the sad shape that it is in.:shock: