Agriculture in Cape Verde

Last Friday, I got to go to a few special places with the Delegate for Agriculture in Sao Vicente. The Delegate is a very young woman with with a lot of wonderful knowledge about the situation with water and planting on this island. Elizabeth and I met up with her in the morning, and she took us for a ride to the water treatment area in Mindelo. It's not too far from our neighborhood! At this treatment facility they treat all the grey and black water from the houses in Mindelo. She told us that they have one of the few oxygen/sun treatment programs. What that means is that the dirty/yucky water from people is run into a series of big holes in the ground. These pools are pumped with oxygen and the sun does its work to break down the waste. There are a series of 7 or 8 pools. The water starts in one of these and stays there for 5 days then is moved to the next pool, then the next and so on. By the time the water gets to the final pool, it is ready to be used on crops. This is an amazing system because it is relatively cheap and makes sense for a place with no water. They have the potential to use desalinization but the system is very expensive to run and maintain, even though they have it! That's a frustrating thing, but the system they are using works relatively well. The major problem is that the farmers outside of the cities can't afford to get the water carried to their farms.

The most successful farming area is the area near the treatment plant... of course. They have a pipeline that runs 7 kilometers to deposit water in holding tanks. The water is then used for drip irrigation of the crops. We went to this farming area and learned that there are 98 associations who have access to plots of this land and the water. The local government gives out the land to deserving farmers or groups, but the land cannot be worked by companies! This way the local people have access to good land and good water and a good system for money making.

Our next stop was to drive past the island's dump! It was awful. They burn all of the trash that comes in from the city. They do not have another way to dispose of it, and the current method is harmful to the environment. All of the metal and glass gets pushed off to the side and just sits there. In Cape Verde, luckily, there is little excess packaging, but that is changing, which will eventually create a HUGE problem for trash management. Also, the glass bottles are widely used rather than cans, but there is no one recycling or collecting them, so they end up at the dump and just take up space. A recycling facility would be really wonderful, but we haven't gotten there yet. That's a minor priority compared to finding water and educating the population.

Finally, we drove out to Calhau to a cheese making cooperation. There is a coop building there where women bring their goat's milk to make cheese. The women then send the cheese into Mindelo to be sold at the stores! I have only eaten it and purchased it in a store, so this was a real treat. It was great to get to meet one of the women and hear her talk about the process and the project. This too is a center built by the local government for these women to develop their small enterprise!

It was a wonderful way to spend a morning. I learned so much! I am waiting to get a call to visit the biologist who works at that water treatment facility. They have a wonderful greenhouse where they grow seedlings to use in the city and sell to individuals. I want to explore that more and spend some time learning about planting in Cape Verde.