Milking it for all it's Worth

I can easily say that this weekend was the highlight of my time here in Nicaragua. I loved driving through the mountains in a car with the fresh air, and being able to just completely relax and listen to my music. We started out the trip by taking a bus from Leon to Managua. Jake and Marg picked us up in their car near the bus station and we headed to Northern Nicaragua. We drove for a little under an hour and arrived at a cattle processing facility. I have never been in a cattle processing facility and I was sort of dreading going. However, it was so interesting, and it was impressively clean and humane. I still like hamburger just as much as I did…and I feel like I appreciate it more. My favorite part was the meat room where the workers carved up each cut of meat. They were crazy fast, and I really enjoyed watching them work. I thought it was very interesting that almost all of the workers are the same people that started on the job when the plant opened five years ago—the people are hard workers and the turnover is low. After we visited the plant, we stopped for lunch at a comedor along the road.

After lunch, we stopped at a cattle yard and learned about how the small farmers in Nicaragua are working together to get a better price for their cattle. I thought it was very interesting that they marketed each animal individually and none of them were marketed in groups—labor is cheap in Nicaragua, and even the processing plants can afford to buy cattle individually. The auction yard was less than a year old and the number of farmers involved was rapidly growing.

After the cattle yard, we drove for a few hours in some of the prettiest country I’ve ever been in. The mountains were green and full of trees, and the lakes and volcanos covered the horizon. In the evening, we drove into town and met a rancher for supper in his home. He was a friend of our Ag professor and spoke fluent English. He was studying agriculture in America during Nicaragua’s war, and he stayed there for a number of years. His grandfather was very wealthy and turned over all of the land to his grandson’s name because he had become an American citizen. Because of this, when he returned and his grandfather passed away he inherited thousands of acres and was able to use the capital he earned in the states to start a cattle herd. We spent the evening asking questions and learning about his life, and then took a walk in the fresh air around the town. It was so wonderful to go for a walk in the cool air, in the evening, and not be whistled at or nervous for our safety. I think I’m learning to appreciate the little things.

The next morning, we woke up early, hopped in the back of his truck (I missed this too) and drove out to the farm site. The land was beautiful and the air was so clean and fresh. We were able to milk cows Nicaraguan style. The cows are primarily beef cattle, but are milked as an additional source of income. Danielle and I were able to show off our cow-milking skills to the Nicaraguan dairymen. I think they were more impressed with the color of our hair than our cow milking skills, but they were very willing to let us help. I seriously thought my hand was going to fall off before I had a half gallon of milk. They milk the cows by tying the back legs together, and then tying the calf to the front leg of the cow and they can milk the cows easily. It was really interesting.

After this, they brought us back to the hotel to clean up—which basically consisted of washing my hands because I only brought one pair of clothes…and then we headed back to the farm to see the milk processing plant. It was a really neat opportunity to see the plant because I could compare it to my experiences working at AMPI for a week in cheese and whey production this summer. Many Nica families own a few cows that they milk daily. They keep the milk that they want for their family and put the milk pail near the road for the men in trucks to drive by and pick them up. With the amount of labor involved, I would assume that the price of milk would be much higher—but because they have such low input costs for feed and labor, milk in Nicaragua is the cheapest that it is in Central America. After the trip he let me drive his ATV and ride his horse. After our adventure, we stopped for lunch and headed back. It was such a fun and relaxing break and I learned a lot about dairy in Nicaragua. Altogether, it was a good week.