Our World in Food

La casa de los dueños de la granja, toda la arquitectura es antigua y preciosa.

Every WWOOF farm I have worked on has been different, but this one by far is the most dissimilar. Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza (FAF) is the largest farm I have worked on and the one with the most resources.

 A few quick facts about FAF:

• FAF stands for Farm with Environmental Fortitude
• 800 hectares in size (2,000 acres)
• Grows: sugarcane, coffee, bananas, vegetables, fruits, makes cheese, honey and eggs
• Have wifi internet
• 6 families of workers live on the farm
• Founded in 1850
• Exports products to Europe and US (coffee)
  

  Café y miel de la granja. Los dos son riquísimos.

FAF is located in a heavily agricultural area of the state of São Paulo, about 3 hours from the capital city of São Paulo. Every single square inch of land that surrounds us is either coffee, pasture, sugar cane or fruit trees, with tiny little pockets of forest here and there.

The history of land use change in this area is complicated and heart breaking. This all used to be Atlantic Forest, like the Amazon rainforest but cooler and with less precipitation. The figures are rough but about 70% of original Amazon Rainforest remains intact, on the other hand, only 5% of original Atlantic Forest is left. This forest is home to 70% of the vertebrate species classified as endangered in Brazil. Here there are only a handful of hilltops with Atlantic Forest left. Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza is one of the only farms in the area that has protected forest areas on their property.

Marcos Croce and Sylvia Barretto, the owners of FAF, do what they can to farm ecologically. They have buffer areas around bodies of water, they are replanting native Altantic Forect tree species and they grow crops organically whenever possible. They say:

“Our Mission is to be a socially, environmentally, and economically Sustainable Farm – a model that sows the seeds of Sustainability to the Individual, to the Family, to the Business community and to Society as a whole.”

However, after conversing for a few days with Marcos I’ve learned a little bit of the history of the farm. It was originally all conventional coffee, meaning sprayed with pesticide and boosted with fertilizer. When Marcos and Sylvia converted their farm to organics they lost thousands of dollars a year as their yields dropped precipitously. But they don’t live off their farm by any means. Marcos manages an export business as well, and with that money they have been able to experiment freely on the farm.

Which raises the question, is FAF sustainable? They have a garden that produces all the fruits and vegetable eaten at home. They continue to grow, buy and process conventional coffee, but are converting to organic and even shade grown coffee (more on that later). At this point they aren’t losing money, but they aren’t making any either, but without the export business they would not be able to continue farming.

La casita de los WWOOFers. Tiene un living, una cocinita y tres ambientesMi cuarto! Solito para mi!

I’m still trying to understand how the farm works and how much of it is actually organic. I don’t even understand how this property is laid out. I feel like I could walk for a day and not get to see half of it. It also took me a while to understand why they even have WWOOF volunteers when they could easily hire paid help. But it’s the same reason why I am not just WWOOFing because it is free. I am WWOOFing to learn. They are WWOOFing to share. I’m curious to learn, although with all the luxuries on this farm I feel like I could easily stay for a long time…

La comida que sirven es increible! Tienen una cocinera que cocina cada delicia, como esto: porotos, arroz, mandioca, carne, y ensalada de la huerta con palta.