Equatorial clouds roll over lush distant mountains at a visible rate. The road I walk on, like every road in town, is sloped and lightly pot-holed. A steep hill rises to my right planted in corn reaching over 15 feet tall. The plants fill the mountainous 2,500 square foot lot. As I imagine using oxen to plow this land I notice nearly every corn plant has a bean spiraling up its stalk. Squash leaves reach along the ground and poke themselves to the street’s edge. The field’s borders are planted in a mixture of banana, citrus, papaya, and cassava fenced by barbed wire and living fence posts.
This huerta is not unique. They dot the hilly landscape throughout town, along the valley floor, and climb the surrounding Andean mountains. Flat ground simply does not easily exist here and people take advantage of every patch of soil available. The fronts of houses are often tangled messes of chia, tobacco, cosmos, borage, chamomile, and hundreds of other flowers and herbs I do not recognize. These herbs are used to make horchata, not the sugary cinnamon drink I am familiar with, but an ever changing and adapting herbal tea consumed daily to consistently provide medicinal benefits.
Rural Ecuador lives with its food. Lots are rarely left vacant. Food literally surrounds and permeates the town, whether as plants or animals. Small grocery stores and a thriving weekend market provide food for people. Do not be fooled, there is plenty of Nestle and Bimbo brand products to enjoy. However, much of the produce and meat is local without giving a second thought.
The consistent temperature ranges from 60-80 degrees combining with 12 hours of daylight to provide the perfect conditions to grow plants, a privilege simply not available in seasonal higher latitudes. As we travel into higher altitudes I was amazed to see how the growing adapted. In the colder climates, still above freezing, people were using fava beans alongside the corn patches. Sheep instead of cows. People are so close to their food the national dish, cuy, is considered a pet in the US!
Through great expanses of flat ground, a decimated indigenous population, the hunger for efficient capitalistic growth at the cost of natural resources, a globalized food market, disconnection from seasons, the destruction of rural America, or another reason, we simply do not have a food culture like this throughout the USA. Each large grocery store offers the same sterilized and processed foods, whether you are in the deserts of Arizona or the woods of New York. Lawns cover the surface of our country making them the largest irrigated crop, 40,000,000 acres or 4 times the acreage of corn.
Instead of living with our food and medicine we outsource production, citing it is too difficult, too much work, inefficient, or not aesthetically pleasing. This has created a system that destroys soil to grow mass produced food and food-like products. It has taken our diet and transformed it into a minimally diverse feedstock requiring costly medical intervention that leads the world.
Of course, Ecuador has its own struggles. Poverty is vast, drug cartels own the police, and food production is becoming more centralized. It is not a Shangri-La. It is one thing to grow food in a country sized greenhouse, and another to grow on ground once pounded by huge herds of bison. While the Ecuadorian challenge is a marathon of continuous planting, weeding, and harvesting ours culminates with processing and storage of crops.
There is an opportunity staring us in the face. Government subsidies used to produce “cheap” food hiding the true costs seen in land degradation and negative effects of human health. “Health” food produced in labs and factories promises us a greener future, but it is becoming harder to argue these products are beneficial for humans, plants, and animals. The proverbial chickens are coming home to roost, hopefully in everyday people’s backyards.
Gardening, and the small production of food offers us the chance to reclaim our health, sovereignty, and community well-being. Yet, small cultivated lands are being met with fierce opposition because they, you, threaten the existence of a supply chain owned by chemical and pharmaceutical companies invested in environmental degradation and human illness.
The answer is right below our feet, below the ground we inhabit. If 5% of irrigated lawns were turned into vegetable, herbs, or small grain gardens we would replace the nationwide acreage of vegetable production. Even if small gardening is has 6x the carbon footprint of conventional farming, a stat I do not believe, given the rate of human sickness we might not make it long enough to really pay for the environmental effects.
At this point it we be advantageous to plug how important it is to purchase food from local producers and support local farms through CSA programs. That is all fine. However, the real answer lies in people choosing a different path. One where your life is full of flowers, pollinators, and food grown by your own hands. Where neighbors consensually trade food from gardens to those in need. Farms are here to support those unable to make the jump in subsidizing their diets with backyard delights.
The real answer is in YOUR hands. It is time to get dirty folks.
It’s Marilyn in Ecuador!🙏
Way to go Alex! Beautiful! Eyes that see are eyes that know!❤️