DAYDREAMERS PART TWO

I DID NOT mention coffee, tobacco and sugar cane in the previous. Of the 3 only the first are alive and kicking. those left cultivating and processing are making some buck$ here and there with their expensive 'gourmet' brands, some with a cost of 2 bucks and more a cup of macchiato, espresso or whatever, in many coffee shops. 

Nevertheless, the people in the coffee industry always whine about not having enough cheap labor hands to collect the grains here.  Some fools talk about importing them peasants from elsewhere, beside the illegal population from the west island, occupying Puerto Rico.

There is no sugar cane, except for some 'guarapo', which makes some of a mystery how there are 'Puerto Rican rums'.  Imagine what would happen to scotch, bourbon, gin, vodka if the countries making it, had to import all the ingredients for the spirits.

There is no tobacco that I know off. But there is a Consolidated Cigar left in Cayey City still manufacturing cigars in that far away city in the boondocks.

Thus, the agricultural possibilities mentioned in the first post, in addition to others like flowers, ornamentals, herbs, spices and mushrooms remain as possibilities to restore some level of food sovereignty.

I see a great obstacles to reach them goals.  One is the avaricious, greedy profit expectations from the people talking, hollering about the urge to return to farming to save the people.

They  claim and preach that farmers need to become entrepeneurs, not in a wise, cautious fashion, but as if farming is merely a project like opening a junk food franchise in which the variables are all under control and prone to planning and projections in terms of profits/expenses/traffic/cash flow and such.

I have bad knew for you if you think likewise. Farming in an under roof nursery roof or  any open space require water, electricity, transport, handling, storage and refrigeration for perishable products.

Most farming in the open depend on weather conditions that contrary to the junk food joint, can not be controlled by men anywhere. For that reason, to concentrate banana or plantain cultivation in areas of easy access, create the possibility of lost
crops during the rainy/hurricane season.

The normal, standard, custom and use, avaricious tone present in the register and discourse regarding this urgent/rushed agritultural revival, from jerks who have not planted a single bean in their life, as if farmers have to become some sort of Bill Gates, with computer, accounting and calculus know how, idiots preaching, believing this will be the cure all solution to our lack of local food production.

They not only show stupidity in the mentioned areas, there is one even worse, the imbeciles are expecting the government, the state, to buy their  crops to feed students in public schools cafeterias, as if our bankrupt state with a 100 billion public debt, was an employment/welfare state/philanthropic institution to finance and embrace business for private and personal profit.

Planting any crops requires timing and waiting, long and short periods to collect if no diseases, drought, rainstorms affect the crops. For that reason I reiterate the need to do an inventory at a national/local level to determine what the general population has planted in their backyards.  This would allow to calculate what is too much or enough of this or that, in terms of planting new crops.

Since breadfruit, lemon, grapefruit, oranges, bananas, guavas, plantains and bananas are already planted in the yards of rural/urban residences in the four cardinal points of Puerto Rico, there is no need to wait, but to find out what the owners plan to do with their crops. To consume, sell, exchange or barter.  This type of inventory does not require any loans from banks to start your little farm by the prairie, just some vision and imagination.

Agriculture does not need the expectations of any periodontist here o there, the Berny Maddox types ripping off, left and right.

The photos at right were taken in Bayamon City in a thirty year old housing project. The area is about 300 square meters, imagine all the different kinds of fruit, edibles, flowers, herbs and spices, trees, that could be found to make the agricultural revival, a process, a project involving the whole island for the benefit of all, and not only a few bastards thinking in their own pockets and benefit.

that is that.