The 2nd day of EARTH was mostly orientation-type stuff so I'm
skipping to day 3 & 4. We woke up around 6am and took a bus to the EARTH
banana farm (bananero o, finca de bananas) where we toured with Freddy Gamboa,
the professor for the sustainable agriculture course who owns the farm and his
right hand farm worker Tullio. He taught us about everything from the life
cycles of banana plants to the diseases they face (especially fungus/mold that
affects the banana leaves and turns them brown/black called sigatoca) and the
challenges of transitioning to organic farming. Initially, EARTH began the farm
in hopes of getting organic certified but one of the planes that dispersed
pesticide accidentally sprayed over the bananero and since then it has been a
non-organic farm. Tullio showed us the shallow root systems and how the
nematodes had affected some of them. He also explained the importance of
composting and fertilizing which they make their own on campus; the fertilizer
often generates so much eat that it kills pests. We found an empty bird nest, worms,
millipedes, and other 'amigos del bosque'..
It was also really cool to see the transportation system that
carried the bananas from the plantations to the processing and packaging plant.
It was powered by a guy sitting in a small driver's seat with an engine
attached to a pulley system with bushels of bananas in blue plastic bags (to
protect the bananas from insects which were also covered in some sort of
garlic/onion/mustard concoction as a natural repellent).
Next we took the bus to the composting area which consisted of a
giant pavilion with large rows of composting materials at various stages of
decomposition. It takes about 3 weeks for one large row of organic material to
finish composting.
Lastly we visited the processing and packaging plant where the
bushels of banans arrive, are sprayed with a chlorine mixture, washed off, cut,
separated and sorted by size and quality, re-washed, stickered, stems sealed
with wax to prevent molding, and then packaged. Finally we finished the tour
with a brunch of bananas.
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