A True Story about where Cacao Comes from
Kevin and Yandre at Sueño de Vida — my local employees.
Meet "my kids,” Yandre and Kevin, seventeen-year-olds from the pueblo whom I employ to help me out a few days a week on the farm, harvesting cacao, shelling the beans, taking care of the trees. We do everything organically here, so it’s done all by hand.
In the other pic are two white people selling cacao on Instagram. I don’t know anything about them except that they don’t seem to be aware that the cacao they sell grows in humid subtropical regions (not on mountains) where no one wears Andean ponchos because its too damn hot. Perhaps they are lovely people under the cultural appropriation. Whatever. That’s image. Let’s talk about reality. I want to tell you about these kids.
This is not us, in case there was any confusion.
They’re smart, personable, and really happy to have a job that lets them work flexible hours around school and helping out on their families’ farms. They call me Patrona which I admit I like, though I’m hardly a patrona in my tattered clothes and muddy boots. I’m not trying to be Save the Children here. I pay these kids a fair wage. They work five hour shifts. They’re healthy and well-fed. They give me side-eye when I give them my banana bread and peanut butter cookies to snack on while they work. Like, uh, we eat, patrona... our moms feed us.
What they DON'T have is a whole lot of opportunity to do anything different than what their dads do — subsistence level farming, growing a valuable product like cacao and selling it unprocessed for pennies so it gets exported and sold by the Poncho Posse here. Or worse, Nestlé.
So little by little, I ask questions and find out what keeps people from adding value to their goods. Cost of processing, sure. Lack of infrastructure. I ask them how they could overcome these challenges. They ask me a lot of questions. I tell them exactly how much I sell cacao for, how much goes in labor, packaging, etc. I want them to know what is possibility, what is reality.
When we work in the cacao field they ask me why I don’t use herbicides or fungicides. I don’t say because chemicals are bad. I say I’d rather pay YOU to help me take care of the plantation than pay the chemical companies. Las químicas son carísimas I say. Too expensive. When they ask me why we plant banana trees with our cacao I show them how we save money by using the big banana leaves as mulch. Look, I say, the banana leaves kill the weeds AND fertilize the soil, FOR FREE. You can’t justify doing something different to people convinced of one way just by telling them it’s "bad for the earth." They know that. But when a farmer (like these kids’ dads) sells a raw agricultural product for pennies it’s hard to care when he’s afraid productivity will drop. So I keep records of our harvests. I show Kevin and Yandre how we’ve increased our production using organic methods. How much we don’t spend on chemicals. I know if I want to get them to think seriously about "permaculture" or my gringa loca ideas I have to show them that they work for regular people too.
But then I talk about the insects and soil life and how they help. I show them that when banana leaves are digested by soil microbes they become fertilizer. Day by day, I show them a bigger picture. Sometimes they glance at each other like "what is she talking about?" And my Spanish is riddled with sometimes hilarious mistakes. But sometimes they nod and look thoughtful. Those are my favorite days, and theirs too.
Friends, my ability to employ these kids and others like them, to show them something beyond the cycle of resource extraction and exploitation depends a lot on you. These kids are real. They don’t wear ponchos for Instagram. Sueño de Vida is for real. We need more support to keep doing what we are doing. Our ability to reforest, to educate, and to employ really depends on you.
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At Sueño de Vida we work in a meaningful way to heal land ravaged by deforestation. How meaningful? According to a recent UN Foresight Brief on climate change,
--It is of the utmost importance to stop deforestation and to increase reforestation efforts around the world. Agricultural practices should focus on soil building, year-round soil cover with plants and the use of agroforestry methods.
That is exactly what we do here at SdV. You can help by helping us do what we do every day: plant forests that nurture soil, people, and community.
Click HERE to donate directly to our reforestation fund OR make a monthly pledge on our Patreon.
Kristen Krash is the director and co-founder of Sueño de Vida, a regenerative agroforestry farm, education center, nature reserve in Ecuador’s Chocó Andino Cloudforest. Prior to moving, Kristen was known for her guerrilla gardens — productive green spaces she created in any available space. Now an urban transplant in the South American rain forest, she has adapted her urban gardening and sustainability skills to large-scale reforestation of degraded land. She takes a practical and accessible approach to helping others achieve more balance and self-sufficiency in their lives.
Kristen’s articles and interviews have been featured on popular sustainability platforms like Abundant Edge and The Mud Home, and in the Rainforest Regeneration Curriculum at the Ecological Restoration Camps.
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