For the last week or so I’ve been alternating between two key areas of the organopónico: the propagation house and the agro-industrial business. It’s the journey from seed to supper really, only I’ve cut out a few steps in the middle (hopefully to be filled in later if/when I’m flight my way into the fields - the realm of what is strictly considered men’s work!)
I started the week where it all begins; sowing seeds. This might not be agri-business of the scale we’re used to but it sure is a business operation - when it comes to lettuce and spinach, it seems we couldn’t have sewed enough. In the summer when vegetables are difficult to grow, these still survive well and are subsequently in hot demand, but we were also working with peppers, mint and brassicas. Almost without exception the seeds are sewed directly into large polystyrene trays filled with a mixture of 45% vermicompost, 25% compost, 25% risk husk and 5% or less of home cultivated microrizas. This mixture thus comes with a high quantity of minerals, nutrients and microorganisms already in the soil and the fungal element increases the potential of the seedlings to further extract minerals and water. And boy do the seeds grow.
Once we’d finished sewing one variety (anything from 5000-10000 seedlings within the team of 4 to 5) the trays are passed through a mesh grate into the large propagation house and lined up on the long tables within. There each tray is marked with their name and the date and either given a protective lid – another tray with small holes – to prevent the seeds from being washed away, or are left as sewn. And there they remain quietly growing away until they’re called up to be planted in the fields or sold to customers, at which point they’ll come out of there again – through the grate- where the same team will loosen the seedlings (pushing a pencil style stick through a hole in the bottom of each pod in the tray) to make it easier for the planting team to extract them in the fields.
The beauty of the propagation house is that between sewing and extracting, the process is fairly low maintenance. They do spray the seedlings with biological pesticides but by and large the space provides protection and the perfect germination area for the plants. Thus the largest human expense in germination is watering; to keep thousands of seedlings from drying out requires three to four watering’s a day – all by hand. Whilst the majority of the raised beds outside are connected to an irrigation network the seeds in the house are still watered by hand to allow for a variation in watering patterns.
Just as I’d got the hang of this routine, as well as made some friends and caught up on what was going on in the sensational radio novellas (low quality Archers, I guess) I was swapping departments and radio stations! I was off up the hill to the back of the allotment to the part I was most excited about – the creation of products from excess produce on site.
In what is called the ‘pequenoagroindustria’ a team of 4 women and 2 men create a range of goods to sell, including: pickled cucumber, beetroots and carrots, garlic paste, passata and small packets of dried herbs such as turmeric, mint and basil. Unfortunately, despite these possibilities I didn’t have the best luck when I visited this team – my days there seemed to coincide with a mass restocking of dried herbs – which meant filling and sealing thousands of small bags of turmeric. This couldn’t really be helped but was a shame I didn’t see the team in full operation. But then again, since this what the team does on a regular basis, I did get the genuine experience and was at least able to see the turmeric production line from root - which gets cut and left to dry in the sun - to powder as it gets ground up in a machine.
Indeed all was not lost: I made an ace friend in Koral (will share some info on her shortly) and was fortunate in the last few hours of my last day to be part of what seemed like an impromptu operation to pickle a small quantity of cucumbers and French beans. Given this was a enough to make 15 units it was not unlike the kind of conserving that could take place at one’s home, though perhaps not quite as fun as I’d imagine a pickling session to be – blame it on the midday heat, a stressed boss and being one man down!
The produce from each department (seedlings / bags, jars and bottles) are either used on site or sold to the public. The quantities are small but they are an important perennial revenue stream for the Organopónico. One problem with the summer, bar the intense heat obviously, is that income from such ventures generally drops. There is less produce to pickle or conserve in some way and less people are keen or able to grow vegetables from the seedlings created here. To the propagation team this is a blow indeed, since a percentage of their wage which they rely dearly upon to supplement their income (whose baseline sits around $17USD a month) doesn’t materialise. Work continues though, people remain mostly cheery and you get the impression they’re still happy to be a part of this fascinating cooperative.
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