At Life Monte Verde there’s no doubt that they are a sustainable farm. They grow all their own crops with the least amount of extra pesticides as possible. They also use every single extra banana peel, goat poop, or anything biodegradable really to produce fertilizer. They don’t let anything go to waste. With producing over 24 edible crops, this takes a big part in everything they do considering that they not only sell it in Costa Rica but export a lot of those crops, meaning that this is where a lot of their money comes from. Their main source of income though is from tourism. They even have a tree that by itself produces 10 times the amount of money they would if it was cut down to plant some coffee trees. Not only does tourism bring them a lot of money but you can also tell that it brings them a lot of happiness as the farmer today Saw us playing in the tree today he watched us with such happiness that you can tell that he was glad he did not get the tree down. You can also tell that they are happy when they help out in the community. Due to the fact that after the tour one of the tour guides took us to a local school to help us paint it and make sure that the kids have a nice beautiful renovated school to come back to next year.

Their biggest struggle has been things they can’t control such as global warming, the climate, and the pandemic. But another bigger problem some might say is that the future generation do not seem to want to continue the family business. If I’m being honest if I was a Ticos farmer’s son can understand why. These days with the evolvement of technology and education there’s a lot of jobs where you could make the quantity of money that you want with less physical labor.

Lastly, if it is one thing they brought my attention to is the importance of community. I believe that community is important because at the end of the day if you have their back, they will have your back. If one day they ever run out of companies to export their products too, run out of tourist to come visit, or God forbid another pandemic hit the only people they would have are the people in their community. That is why I found it really amazing when they took us to go paint that school, many businesses focus solely on how much revenue they will make this month, but not many will walk down the block to make sure that families are eating correctly and that students are getting the proper education they need. Now that really stood out to me.