MEDELLIN, COLOMBIA
I’ve just returned to my hotel room after a full day visiting folks and keynoting the 16th annual AgroFuturo Expo here in Medellin, Colombia. Attended by some 16,000 people from 30 countries and showcasing nearly 400 vendors’ worth of good, this three-day affair is a pretty big shindig. I was the only speaker from the U.S. They picked me; the U.S. didn’t. ha!
Medellin is a city of 4 million people, sunk into a valley surrounded by magnificent mountains. The weather is between 80 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit every day of the year and rainfall runs anywhere from 60-100 inches a year. It is a lush, verdant country and I’ve enjoyed fresh papaya and the thumbnail potatoes that are a signature staple of the country’s cuisine.
On the 15-mile ride over the mountain from the airport, I was struck by fences. Everything is fenced; even places steep enough to nearly require repelling ropes. Why? Because they have cows or sheep everywhere. Even a medical clinic was fenced and a lone Guernsey milk cow contentedly mowed the lawn. Folks, this is the way it ought to be.
I ate lunch with a fellow whose family runs a 500-cow dairy of dual-purpose cows (beef and dairy). All the milking is done by hand, with each guy milking 20-25 cows. Milked out in the field, the cows don’t walk to a parlor. A refrigerated tank pulled by a tractor comes to the field at the end of milking and hauls all the milk to the farm’s bulk tank where it is picked up by a dairy processor. When I expressed shock over milking that many cows by hand, the farmer explained that they didn’t have equipment to break down and it provided much needed employment. Sounds good to me.
The highlight for me was meeting with 11 young coffee growers. They had attended my address earlier in the day and were brimming with questions about labor, moving animals, and finances. None of them had ever contemplated running animals, especially chickens, under their coffee trees. But they are now.
Folks explained to me that Colombia is still behind the industrialization curve. Data from other presenters showed that right now 30 percent of the world’s agricultural soils are degraded and that is expected to increase to 90 percent by 2050. Commodity productivity per acre is down across the board, driving prices up. The sense among attendees was that chemical, industrialized models are running out of steam. A strong sense of ecological production practices exists and fortunately this country does not have to hit as severe an “undo” button as countries like the U.S.
A broad hopefulness of reversing the degenerative trend is apparent. Interestingly, the huge machine trade show hall featured only one chipper and not a single manure spreader. That signifies a profound disconnect between what folks want to do and what is actually being done. But numerous exhibits had drones to fly on chemicals and AI mechanisms to adjust chemical fertilizer. And goop to put in confinement hog facilities to make the lagoon manure less toxic.
I told the chipper guys that if every farm had one of those babies and a manure spreader, half the exhibitors could go home because they’d be obsolete. That outfit wanted to sit me on a chair to preach my sermon--on commission. Ha!
It’s been a fascinating and invigorating day. People are moving to Medellin from all over the world. Cheap living and perfect weather all year round, with plenty of water. What’s not to love? Oh, a bottle of water is 30,000 pesos. About $8. So everything isn’t perfect.
For me it was somewhat emotional, being my first trip to South America since our family fled the Venezuelan revolution in 1961, losing our farm and all our equity. Dad was 39. I was 4. Imagine if we hadn’t been chased out at the point of a gun and had stayed. We’d have faced the debacle of Chavez and Maduro. So in hindsight, it was a blessing to lose everything. It’s still a beautiful part of the world with abundant resources and beautiful people.
Have you ever had a tragedy turn into a blessing, in hindsight?