This remarkable experience is worth sharing with all of you!
In 2014, I travelled to Costa Rica in search of a potential exchange of sustainable development work.
I arrived in the town of Monteverde, in the north-west part of Costa Rica and found a unique coffee farm run by a man named Guillermo Vargas
This man ended up opening my eyes, mind and heart to a whole new perspective and inevitably changed the intention of my direction in life.
The farm is called Life Monteverde
Their main objective is to promote their coffee production through an ecological sustainable platform. Tourism can play a double-edge sword role within the cultural boundaries of a given country and can create vicious circles of economic dependencies, in addition to waging risks in leaving negative footprints, both ecologically and socially.
Guillermo Vargas endeavoured to shed light into matters of conscious minded tourism and divert it into a means of promoting the concept of sustainable development.
One of the projects I worked on focused on the advantages of in-depth complementary planting. We chose to use castor oil beans and plant them in between coffee bushes, given that their function as nitrogen fixers can be very useful to the soil and coffee tree, in addition to the eventual shade provided by the castor oil beans once they grew in size.
Companion Planting
Biodigestor Engineering
At the time I was not yet informed on the multiple means to produce your own fuel with organic recycled material and by doing so generating sufficient gas to cover daily consumption such as cooking and heating. To me, it meant another step forward to becoming self-sustainable, whilst leaving as little ecological footprint as possible. A previous student at LIFE Monteverde had set-up a biodigestor, running on pig manure, contained within a sealed infrastructure with a pipe allowing the risen gas to travel to the main living space within the farm. This biodigestor fueled an estimated 6 hours of gas per day with manure provided from only 2 adult pigs. If you are comfortable and are interested in a diversified farm structure, one which includes animal husbandry, this is one possible way of symbiotically living with them.
Lastly
At LIFE Monteverde, I gained significant experience in meeting people from all corners of the world, in search for means to help bring about change in this given paradigm of conventional agriculture. There are feasible measures to be taken with the power of tourism, one which can raise awareness and enable direct implication.
If you ever find yourself in Central America, possibly even in Costa Rica and searching for a different cultural experience, one that will help both the country you are visiting and yourself, please do not hesitate to give this farm a try. It changed me undoubtedly and who knows, it might open some beautiful doors for you as well.
Here is the link to the farm and Facebook page:
https://cafedemonteverde.com/life-monteverde/
https://www.facebook.com/lifemonteverde/
Share love, knowledge and compassion!!
Hugs,
Bagheera
