A Green Mountain with a Valley Just Right - The World Food Prize

Hemken 15Rachel and I interviewed eighteen families (Appendix 3: Interview Questions), out of thetwenty -four that are a part of La Bella, that accept volunteers and students in home-stay situations. Wecreated family and parcel profiles for each,photographed the family members, parcels and houses,and also wrote a history and overview of the farm.During the interviews, Rachel, because of her greaterproficiency in the Spanish language, asked the questionsand I photographed. To not confuse ourselves or overlapour work, Rachel wrote the profiles (Appendix 5:Family Profiles) from the information gained by ourinterviews (mainly because she could discern her notesbetter than I) and I researched and compiled the FincaLa Bella history and overview (Appendix 4: History andOverview). All of this will be published on a websiteplanned for the Finca La Bella project. We anticipate itwill attract more volunteers and students. Right nowthere are very few visiting because several groups whoweresendingthemabstainnow for various reasons.The website will also contain the followinginformation, Tips and Advice (Appendix 6) andSuggestions for Teaching English (Appendix 7), bothwritten by former volunteers; Let Me Ask You AQuestion (Appendix 8), written by Ann Kriebel whoinspired the La Bella project; Volunteer and StudentResponsibilities(Appendix 9);and What toExpect (Appendix 10). The first three items I typed andedited from papers found in the La Bella files and the lasttwo I compiled from various sources. The hope is that theinternet-posted information will attract more volunteersand students, which would generate more income for theparceleros. If all goes well the parceleros will not haveto work off their parcel, therefore they will be able todevote more time to sustainable agriculture practices anddevelopment.The concept of Finca La Bella was developed toassist poor landless farmers. Kathleen A. Starr wrote in aletter to Sybil Grace on March 4, 1994, that:“Tracts of farmland in Costa Rica are beingbought up by large and in many cases foreign companiesfor hotels and resort sites, ranches and plantations. Thishas accentuated the difficulty for poor and not so poorlandless people.”