Anselmo Rodriguez, the owner of La Esperanza farm, is a Costa Rican farmer who specializes in organic production. Sixteen years ago, he decided to dispense with artificial inputs on his six-hectare property. Everything he produces completes its biological cycle without manmade chemicals.

“To operate a farm like this one, the first requirement is love for the land. You have to be “married” to it. We now generate income and love what we do,” Anselmo told the ministers of agriculture of Dominica, Matthew Walter, and Antigua and Barbuda, Joanne Massiah, who visited the farm on 20 July.

The Minister of Agriculture and Marine Resources of Bahamas, Lawrence Cartwright, visited the farm only five days later. The farmer told him: “About the only thing we don’t do here is record the squeals of the pigs and export them. We take advantage of everything else and make use of it.”

“I would like to reproduce this in my country, this farm model is unusual and very interesting given our production needs,” said the Minister of Agriculture of Dominica, Matthew Walker.

A range of experiences

Over the course of a single day, the ministers visited a series of locations in Costa Rica - La Esperanza farm and Carillanca S.A. (which produces tomatoes), the Central American School of Animal Husbandry and the National Learning Institute. They observed a variety of operations, including organic production, greenhouses, hydroponics, plant tissue cultivation and dairy farming with goats.

At Carillanca S.A., a company that for ten years has been producing tomatoes in greenhouses, using hydroponics and environmentally friendly technologies, the visitors learned about fertilization methods and the management of crops under protected environments.

The Costa Rican company exports 30% of its production to the United States of America and several Caribbean islands, such as Puerto Rico and Martinique. The other 70% is sold to the Wal-Mart supermarket chain in Costa Rica.

Minister Cartwright also visited the nurseries of the National Learning Institute. There he learned about in vitro crops (sterilization practices and aseptic measures, transplantation techniques and cultivation media).

He also observed examples of hydroponic production systems, such as the nutrient film technique (NFT), hydroponic beds and the vertical hydroponic and floating root systems. The delegates from Bahamas remarked that the techniques demonstrated were neither sophisticated nor expensive and could easily be used by families in their country to improve food security.

At the end of his tour, the minister said, “We are taking good ideas back with us to Bahamas. We want to send people to be trained here in Costa Rica. We are grateful to IICA for facilitating experiences of this kind.”

The ministers from Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda visited the Central American School of Animal Husbandry, where the courses include forest management and wildlife, food technology, agro-ecotourism and animal production.

The school has developed commercial enterprises as a source of income and as a teaching and training tool, especially the breeding of goats, whose milk is used to produce top-quality cheeses.

The coordinator of IICA’s Center for Leadership, Hernan Chiriboga, said, “The objective of these activities is to learn by doing, to observe the practical application of technical know-how. These visits are organized based on specific requests from individual ministers. They enable the ministers to learn about local experiences and lead initiatives in fields of interest to them.”

“I am convinced our farmers can benefit from the knowledge and experience I acquired through this activity,” the minister from Dominica said.

For more information, contact
hernan.chiriboga@iica.int