Today, we toured Life Monteverde coffee farm before returning to Heredia. After touring the farm, we had the opportunity to help plant maize and taste/identify five different types of coffee. The presentation emphasized that sustainability can not exist without education. For instance, Wolfgang Guindon was one of the first Quakers to settle in Monteverde. He led the dairy industry, cutting down thousands of acres of forested land for pastures. However, Wolfgang Guindon happened to be a leader of reforestation roughly twenty years later, after becoming more educated about the values of the Cloud Forest. 

As we toured around the farm, a large focus was placed on how they are phasing out herbicides and pesticides through their bio fertilizer. In their lab, workers collect soil from the forest and cultivate bacteria with molasses and semolina. As the bacteria are reproduced, they can be transferred back into the soil. The microorganisms aid in fixing nitrogen and producing the nutrients essential for agriculture. Although this process is more sustainable, the first seven years are going to be costly; sustainability is a long term investment. Similarly, through developing hybrid coffee plants, the farmers can avoid fungicides altogether.

Lastly, the tour allowed the group to get a glimpse of what life is like as a Tico farmer. They face the challenge of balancing conservation with productivity. In Monteverde, it is common for farmers to achieve this balance through ecotourism; however, tico farmers suffered during the pandemic, as ecotourism decreased exponentially, reducing resources for agriculture. Today’s tour also demonstrated that bioengineering plays a huge role in agriculture. Without continuous research, trial, and error, progress cannot be made in identifying how to maximize output with the constraint of conserving finite natural resources. For instance, producing Life Monteverde’s biofertilizer is a meticulous process and is under continuous development. If I were the child of a tico farmer, I could see myself dedicating my life to this very research. As I was discussing with my group today, probiotics necessary for the biofertilizer could be cultivated with fermented vegetables instead of milk. This would reduce the negative effects associated with dairy production such as air pollution, deforestation, and economic losses. 

After three coffee tours this trip, I feel world’s more knowledgable about the agricultural supply chain; I can’t wait to now look at this through the lens of pineapples and bananas!