Taro

it's 6:24am on a Tuesday. I am still in bed, Alex has been out of bed for a while. For reasons not understood by myself, Alex is now a morning person, preferring to start her days before 6am. There was a chainsaw going in the distance, but it has ended now that it has started to rain.

I have mentioned before that our friends here are mostly subsistence farmers; there are plenty of stores and it's not uncommon to be served rice and canned meat by our neighbors, but the bulk of everyone's diet is locally grown foods, mostly root crops. Taro and Kava are the only two crops that are grown locally to sell outside of the district. As I have mentioned in a previous blog entry, when we did health surveys it was common for families to report that they had eaten taro for each of their three meals the previous day. Yes, taro for breakfast, taro for lunch and then taro for dinner, most days. Kava is just as heavily consumed, I am not sure how several of our male friends would function without kava. Kava is consumed at most every community gathering and all significant events that take place in our district and most nights as friends gather to hang out. (kava is a narcotic)

The kava and taro don't sell for much, but they always sell. The average farmer here could make about $1000usd a year selling kava and taro to Port Vila, if they wished. This isn't a lot of money, but there aren't many expenses on the island, mostly rice and canned meat when the mood strikes and fundraisers which people are pretty much obligated to participate. There are more, of course. Some folks are very happy with their subsistent life while others wish they could live a more western lifestyle with a fancy house and gadgets and a high-paying job.

Some development groups have suggested that those that wish for more western lives could obtain it with 'high-value cash crops', basically foods and plants that you grow to sell but you would not really grow for eating. Vanilla beans would be a classic example, as would sandalwood trees and black pepper. There's a lot more too, and probably a few that could make a meal. Some big businessman in Port Vila are pushing tamarind now. The cacao tree was pushed at some point. Islanders were told (via the radio) that everyone must plant cacao trees and they would all get rich. There is little market for the average islander for cacao now, all those trees that people invested in and planted are still growing but they are not being harvested.

Cuba was growing a lot of high-value cash crops just before their big crash in the 90's. Among others, they had plantations full of sugarcane. They were growing sugarcane, selling it outside of the country and using the profits to import food to eat. When they lost the ability to export the sugarcane and other high-value cash crops (due to the fall of the Soviet Union and the loss of more than 50 percent of Cuba's oil imports and 85 percent of its trade economy), people went hungry and the average Cuban lost 30 pounds. You can't eat most high-value cash crops.

We don't grow many high-value cash crops in our district, you can still find stands of Vanilla beans from the days when the radio told everyone that was the road to richness and some stands of lumber trees that are now being harvested for local use. The radio now says that we can't compete with the Asian islands to our north in vanilla bean production and tamarind is our new road to richness.

What would happen if the radio was right this time? What if our farmers could make a significant profit with plantations full of tamarind? They could grow and export tamarind and import whatever they wanted to eat instead of eating taro for every meal. With the leftover money they could build a cement house and buy gadgets, like television and MP3 players (and water tanks and solar panels). Doesn't sound so bad? Those that were not interested in a more modern life could continue to plant and eat taro everyday.

There are potential issues that we can learn from Cuba (especially with the talk of peak oil), and there is at least one more necessary consideration. As land becomes profitable, it is coveted and thus flows into the hands of those people with the money and/or the power to obtain the land. This has been the case throughout our history. If, through the proper mix of high-value cash crops our farmers were able to make enough profit to afford a more western life, it is likely their land would be bought or taken by people who see land as a financial investment and only look at land production in terms of profitability. Of course, profits from the sale of their land could be used to build cement houses and buy gadgets, water tanks and solar panels. There's a good chance some could find work on the tamarind plantations. With more money in the rural communities, as the argument goes, other businesses would have an opportunity to grow and thrive.

We were at a big Christmas party yesterday, Anglican priests from all over North Pentecost gathered in our district for two days of drinking kava and eating. A huge picnic shelter was built with a giant table. There was a significant spread of food, all kinds of fruits and vegetables and meats and lots of rice. Beef, chicken and pig, every tropical fruit that is in season, root crops, vegetables and lots of watermelon. Do you know what food was most popular? Which food was finished first and was stacked in high piles on most everyone's plate?

Taro, of course.