I return from Cabo Verde with a deep respect for the humans (and their donkey colleagues) who keep the ingenious local food production going. On steep mountain slopes, in valleys and high up ridges, and with little water resource; they manage to produce a wide variety of crops year round. And they are truly healthy and full of flavour.
Sadly, but understandably, not many (younger) people want to work in agriculture anymore due to its immeasurable hard work and little to no salary. Food production now depends mostly on the elderly. We meet a man who is past the Dutch retirement age and his donkey Foguete (rocket), telling us he still works because ‘someone’s got to do the work’. A woman told us she used to walk up and down the mountain 7 times a day, with two children on her back and buckets of harvest in her hands and on her head. Her children are grown now, and she approaches the age at which people are considered
‘worn out’; 40.
Together with the young people who leave for Brasil or countries up North, the local, mostly organic agriculture disappears I can’t blame them for chasing their dreams, but it does make me feel sad to think of the future of Cape Verde’s agriculture (and the nature with which it is so clearly intertwined). Is it just a matter of time until the food production will be completely replaced by import? Or will it be outsourced to less fertile (but better accessible) islands, with the work done by Senegalese immigrants? With ‘help’ of pesticides and chemical fertilisers provided by European companies?
We need to value local organic agriculture more.
Everywhere in the world. It is essential.
Provide hard-working people who feed the world with honest salaries. Use modernday technical development to make the work less hard on workers.
Respect retirement age. Stimulate young people to stay and find dreams rooted in their own culture and economies.
In peasant solidarity #peasantstruggle #solidarity
Leonie Cosijnse
Text and Photos
Março, 2024
minnie freudenthal | 2024-03-24
|
Congratulations Leoni! It was a real pleasure to have met you in Cabo Verde with Petra and Suzanne. Keep up the wonderful work you do.
Rita Roquette de Vasconcellos | 2024-03-26
|
Absolutely right. We are slowly feeding the pharmaceutical industry and no one talks about it. Cheers. Boa Páscoa.🐣