LA FINCA – PART 1

One of the reasons collective farms were such a dismal failure in the Soviet Union, apart from the fact that the system itself was fatally flawed, was that they had no reliable system of farm to market roads. Even if they produced a bumper crop of whatever, it was often impossible to get the produce or commodities to market because the roads were so terrible. One of the reasons farms in the United States are so successful is our system of farm to market roads which most of us take for granted, or even worse have never even thought about. We can get our produce to market, or if the farmer needs a part for his tractor, he can easily get to the John Deer dealer and back in, at the most, a couple of hours.

Well, we left for the Acosta family finca (you probably know the Mexican name – rancho) this morning with a hired truck carrying some large items that Javier could not get into his pick-up. The truck continued on when the family stopped for breakfast along the way. Later,when we turned off the paved road onto the dirt road along which the various fincas in the region are found, it became obvious right away what an adventure this was going to be. This is the rainy season in Panama.

The family was in two vehicles, a 4 wheel drive SUV and a 4 wheel drive pick-up. The hired truck, which had gone ahead, was not 4 wheel drive. What it was, was stuck up to its rear axle about 2 ½ miles up the dirt (mud) road. When we got there, the driver and two men, a father son team, whom Javier had hired for the day to help with the cattle, were all three busy trying with no success to get the truck unstuck. Javier tried to pull the truck out of the mud with his pick-up and almost got it stuck before he gave up. In the process, however, the truck managed to tear up its differential by shifting back and forth from reverse to forward. Part of the payload on the truck was about 30 large bags of caleche, or broken up rock and concrete, for the very purpose of putting in the road in the worse places to prevent the vehicles from getting stuck. While Javier went off to arrange for one of his neighbors to pull the truck out with a tractor, we all began to spread caleche in the ruts behind the truck so the tractor could easily get close. By this time other neighbors from up the road, who had a vested interest in getting the road cleared, came out to help.

As we were all working there, the thought occurred to me that the farmers and ranchers in Panama have made a terrible trade off . They pay no, nada, zero taxes. Now even if they did, there is no guarantee that the money would go to a FM road system or anything else to benefit them, but it sure might give them some leverage with the lawmakers. Right now how successful could any lobbying effort be. They have already cut their deal; no taxes. So, they spend half their day working on the non productive activity of trying to get a truck out of the mud, and in the process they beat up their vehicles by slipping, sliding and dragging bottom for miles.

I mentioned this to Javier as the tractor and the truck disappeared around a curve in the distance. He gave me that ever present Javier smile, swept of his arm through the air in a grand gesture and said, “But my friend, this is how we live.”