One reason I chose Ecuador over other possible destinations is because a friend introduced me to her relatives who are citizens of the country. One morning, in an act of incalculable generosity, her cousin Federico drove me out to the family dairy farm south of the city. He spent an entire day showing me around.
Ecuadorian farmland is beautiful. In the USA farms are laid out in a boring rectilinear grid. A national survey begun in 1785 ensured rural property would be parceled out in an organized fashion. Land was divided up into sections one mile on a side: 640 acres to a section, 36 sections to a township, all precisely aligned north-south.
Lacking such a survey, farm boundaries in Ecuador (and in Europe) were set using other criteria: ridge tops, streams, a neighbor's encroachment. Fields are irregular, curving, making for attractive looking countryside.
In France, farm roads like this one would be lined with poplars. Ecuadorians chose eucalyptus: similarly fast-growing trees that produce arguably better timber.
Federico runs about 300 cows on just over 400 acres, a density made possible by ample rainfall. His animals look contented grazing on all that lovely green grass.
The farmhouse is lovely too. The family lives in Quito where they have friends and other businesses. They use the original farmhouse built by Grandpa as a weekend getaway. The house was constructed entirely of lumber cut from the farm's own timber.
A spring satisfies water needs. Tumbling down hillsides, it reaches a system of ditches where it is directed to provide water for the livestock, the humans, and for irrigating pasture during the dry season. I find it somehow satisfying that the farm derives so many of its resources from the land itself.
Nearby, Federico's uncle runs a cheese-making operation. He used to live in this log house although he has since moved to the city.
He makes artisanal cheeses. They look and smell yummy and sell to the luxury market. One of his buyers comes all the way from Belgium. Talk about bringing coals to Newcastle.
On Federico's farm, the cows are milked at 3 AM and 3 PM using modern milking machines. The milk is sold to Carnation, so the farm is a small capillary in a vast artery that supplies all of Ecuador.
Nearby, an even smaller capillary sells milk to no one except for maybe a couple of neighbors. An indigenous woman milks her two cows by hand while keeping an eye on her two-year-old daughter.
It's a marvel that people still milk cows this way. Maybe there's hope for us all.
Walking about on Federico's smallholding gives me a good feeling. The milk and cheese-making operations show that small farmers can succeed, at least in Ecuador.
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