Come What May: Return to Patagonia: Down on the Farm

One month ago I arrived in Argentina, set to continue my journeys for as long as time and money and mind allow. After a few days in Buenos Aires I headed back to El Bolson, situated along the 42nd parallel at the foot of the Andes. Spring is in full swing with the sun shining hotter and longer and the greens growing greener than they did during my last stay, in Winter, but nights are still chilly and the surrounding peaks are still covered in snow.

I am currently staying at the Granja Valle Pintado (Painted Valley Farm) as a volunteer, working in exchange for food and shelter and knowledge. My goal is to learn about sustainable living practices including farming, building, and community living. We are three volunteers (two Americans and one Argentine) and the farm´s owner, Alex. Alex is an American citizen but grew up in Indonesia and has lived for the past several years here in Argentina. He and a group of several people from Argentina, Canada, Chile, and the US bought 20 acres in the wake of the peso collapse in 2001 with the goal of creating a small, self-sufficient community. So far, the only one who lives permanently on the land is Alex. He accepts volunteers during most of the year to help in advancing projects on the farm and to share his extensive knowledge about biodynamic agriculture.

He recently organized a community-supported agriculture program where people can pay the farm a regular contribution for a ¨share¨ of its produce: each week during harvest season each member receives a "basket" of the farm's goods. CSA's have prospered in the US and can be found in every state (Manhattanites can even participate), but in Argentina the idea is still in its infancy. The idea is to reunite people with local sources of food and rescue agriculture from large-scale production methods. Why? Because the methods used to produce, process, package, and transport the food we buy in supermarkets cast more than a shadow of doubt upon the quality and safety of that food. Moreover, large-scale agriculture depends on an unsustainable exhaustion of natural resources and an unacceptable destruction of habitats for all living organisms.

We generally work from 9 to 8, with a healthy three hour siesta in the middle of the day. The volunteers have one day and a half free each week and we use them to go into town (a 1 hour hike) or relax around the river. Tasks we have been keeping busy with include weeding, watering, planting, transplanting from greenhouse to outside, applying mulch and compost, preparing earth for planting with a hoe, digging a 300 meter ditch for an irrigation pipe, putting in posts for a corral, caring for the chickens, making beer, grinding flour, making bread, and cooking meals.

Crops we have include carrots, rutabaga, kale, leeks, corn, garlic, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, parsnip, bok choy, quinoa, wheat, corn, millet, flax, potatoes, radishes, beetroot, basil, chard, arugula, squash, zucchini, cilantro, parsley, oregano, mustard. There are fruit trees such as apple, peach, plum, and cherry, but many of them are too young to give fruit yet. Rose hip grows like a plague everywhere and, while its fruit is good for everything from jams to vinegar, will cut you kindly if you forget its thorns. We share the farm with the cow Rosa, the horse Volcan, the dog Tao, 16 chickens, a family of geese, and a hive of bees for making honey. The bees are exceptionally aggressive: After 25 years with only one bee sting, I have been rewarded with no less than 7 over the past few weeks.

On a final note, I recently celebrated the one year anniversary off my being laid-off from JPMorgan.