agriculture

[mimi]

I have a vacation booked for the Dominican Republic in April. I am interested in finding out about the agriculture on the island. My son is very interested in farming, especially farm equipment. We would like to find out what type of agricultural equipment is on the island. Are there any agricultural equipment dealers? Or are there any junkyards or dealers that sell used equipment? Is there anyway we could visit some farms that grow sugarcane or other crops? We are interested in this because we have been studying some English brands of tractors that were made in the 1960's and many of them were exported to the islands for sugar cane work. We would love to find some of these and photograph them if possible. Any leads or information would be helpful since we will be on the island only a week and planning these type of excursions ahead of time really can make a difference. Also would we need to have a guide with us if we were to go off-the-beaten tourist path and do some of these activities?

 

[Sarah]

In what area of the country (North, East, Central, South, Southwest) will you be vacationing?

 

[mimi]

We are going to be atbthe Sandy Beach Village Resort for a week, which is in the Southeast, near the airport.

 

[hillbilly]

Most agriculture is in the Central or North..

Your question is interesting in that it shows just how ignorant most people are about this country...
While economic and political considerations (Mostly unknown in the U.S.) seem to limit the size of some farms, and topography severely limits some of the techniques, there are some farms here that are world class models. Rainbow Farms in Las Matas de Santa Cruz are a prime example of this. There is no more technified farm like this in the world!

However, there are other aspects to consider.
1) Sugarcane is an extensive crop, requiring little machinery until recently, and that is really basic farm tractors or larger tractors for wheeling the cut cane out to the factories or mills.
Nowadays, we are seeing the introduction of mechanical cane harvesters.
2)Rice, a Dominican staple crop, is, unfortunately, not as mechanized as would be possible, due to (a)terrain; (b)investment costs;(c)farm size, among others. Lasar equipment has been used to level terrain and reduce the number of dikes needed, but not all farms are susceptible to these techniques.
Tractors and combines are in wide use.
3)Plantains and bananas (mursaceas) are another extensive crops that provide a large proportion of the daily caloric intake but are not at all mechanized. Bananas grown for export have experimented several attempts to introduce modern techniques such as micro-propagation of plants, airial transport of cut stems, and insecticide impregnated pre-harvest enclosures for avoiding such pests as Thrips. Plantains are very rarely in need of machinery beyond trucks to haul to market.

Finally, there are several very nice-sized dealerships for all this machinery in Santo Domingo. I am sure that you would recognize the Green and Yellow ones and the Blue ones and the Red ones, Right?

If you look in the right corners you can find old ones too...

HB

 

[mimi]

Re: Most agriculture is in the Central or North..

Thanks hillbilly for the information. I guess I need to get a hold of a phonebook to find the names and locations of the dealers that you mentioned are in Santo Domingo. However, as I wrote, I am not that interested in the reds, greens and yellows, etc. We can see plenty of these in the states. My thoughts were more along the lines of used machinery (mainly brands like County and Roadless), which from what you said can be found at the major dealers, most likely in the back.

I still am very interested in the agriculture on the island. I work mainly with dairy and cash grain farmers in Wisconsin, helping them balance their fertilizer needs with their on-farm nutrient resources (like manure). We have great concerns about the quality of our groundwater and surface waters and agriculture is the main source of non-point pollution. We, of course, have many other issues affecting agriculture but they are too many to rattle off.

What are the issues affecting the islands agriculture? Are they economic, political, environmental? Are there any good sources of information out there?
Thanks

 

[D.D.]

Thanks for the compliment HB! *DC*

 

[hillbilly]

Issues? Too many to even start on!!

Call me when you get here...Send D.D. an e-mail too.
You will probably find some old macinery at La Romana or one of the Vicini sugar mills but little, elsewhere. There used to be an old one cylinder J.D. at the old Hacienda Bogaert in Mao but I haven't been there ( vintage 1958 and combines frome the same time)in ages.
Issues here are commercialization of the crops at harvest; post harvest care; costs...on and on and on...i find that farmers all over have the same basic problems, no matter what the crop...

Other stuff like environmental issues can go take a flying ****
if the farmetrs could just get fair prices and make a decent living at what they love to do...

Here the markets are too volatile to guarantee the farmer a good return on his investment.

HB