This article is one of a series on life in the campo, or country living in Costa Rica, as my wife and I* experienced it on our visits and after moving to Costa Rica. Each is a sort of time capsule, the stories evolving with us as we have lived more experiences and delved deeper into the culture.

One of the things you notice in the campo is the lack of rain forest. What happened to all of it? One of the explanations is cattle. In the past (like 30 years ago), tropical rain forests were considered unproductive land. When the settlers (nowadays they are called squatters) came into an area they “improved” it by cutting down the jungle, and by doing this, they had ownership of the land. Cattle (ganado) are often raised, because in subsistence living, you could do quite well from the milk and meat from the cows. An interesting observation: ganar means to gain, to earn, or to win. Your cattle were (and are) your earnings (ganado) for all of your hard work.

I understood this, but what I did not understand was why the explosion of deforestation. People have practiced subsistence farming in the tropics for many years, but deforestation at the scale it is occurring is a new phenomenon (there is some evidence that it has occurred before, but many centuries ago).  I had with me on a recent trip some people who were familiar with raising cattle in the USA (Texas and Okalahoma). Their observations really helped me understand what is happening and why.

While we were seeing the finca of a neighbor who raises cattle, the discussion turned to how cows are raised in the USA compared to in Costa Rica. In the states, the ratio of cows to acres is about 1 to 15, that is, it takes 15 acres to support one cow, and you do have to bring in grain, etc. In Costa Rica (at least in this area), the ratio is 1 cow to 1 ½ acres. Also, the only thing that the cattle have to be given is some minerals and shots. Obviously, raising beef in Costa Rica is much cheaper. And the transportation cost for beef in a container is less than 10 cents a pound.

Also, in the states, you do not raise calves year round. The bull is kept from the cows except for 1 month of the year. That way, all of the calves are born at one time. This is so that they will be big enough to sell in the fall. Keeping livestock over the winter is very expensive in the states—you have to put up hay to feed them. By the way, a funny aside: While there, a part of a vehicle worked itself loose, and we needed to effect a temporary fix. Being familiar with farms, I asked for baling wire. I got blank looks. I figured it was my bad Spanish, so I proceeded to attempt to describe it. More blank looks. Finally I gave up and let them fix it. (They just removed the loose part.) The truth is that there is no baling wire. They don’t bale hay. They don’t bale anything—there is no need. The grass grows all year. (It is possible in Guanacaste that they would, since the dry season is more pronounced.) I am deeply concerned with the ability of the ticos to fix anything if they do not have baling wire. Well, at least they have duct tape….

So, since beef is so much cheaper to raise in Costa Rica (and the cost of labor is much less as well), much of the beef is bought by other countries. Because there is such a large demand for cheap beef (think fast-food joints), there is considerable reward in raising cattle. One of the things that is heartening is that the local landowners remember how good the water was back 30 years ago and can tell the damage that is being done to the land. They are starting to allow land that is not suitable for cattle to go back to jungle. I was noticing a commercial in the USA that was encouraging farmers to protect the waterways on their property. In Costa Rica, it is law that you cannot harvest wood within 15 meters of any waterway. This is to help create biological corridors so that animals can travel through the farms between large tracts of forest. This is an interesting compromise between the environment and the need of the farmers to make a living. In my opinion, Costa Rica is doing a remarkable job of trying to protect the environment without removing the livelihood of the landowners.

Currently, to cut trees on a property, you need to have a survey done by a forestry engineer. He determines which trees can be cut. Volunteer trees (like laurel) can be cut on his say-so alone, but all other trees have to be approved for cutting by MINAE, a government ministry. There are some trees that are considered so rare that you will never get permission to cut them. They are needed as mother trees to propagate their species. We have a few of these on our property.

*We are Fred and Amy Morgan, originally from the US. We bought a dairy farm in Costa Rica to plant trees in its pastures, then later caught a dream of turning all the land we can to permanently protected, sustainably maintained forest once the plantation trees have been harvested for profit. Along the way, we made it possible for our former partner to realize his dream of starting a business of his own in his native land. He is featured in many of the earlier stories.

To read more about Finca Leola S.A. and how you can also invest in trees and at the same time help with reforestation, go to Own Trees with Us.

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