Colombian Edgar Blandon Teaches Organic Fertilizer Techniques
On a warm, foggy morning at the Selva Negra Coffee Farm in Nicaragua, Colombian agronomist Edgar Blandon stands in front of a group of coffee farmers. Politely, he asks them to reach their hands into a pile of manure and really feel it; its texture, its warmth, its weight. The farmers, hailing from Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Mexico, roll up their sleeves, happy to comply.
The group is at Selva Negra as a part of Food Security Solutions, an event hosted by Sustainable Harvest aimed at tackling food insecurity issues in coffee producing communities. During the event, they spend two full days with Edgar in a workshop on the production of organic fertilizers, using the method that Edgar has pioneered in Colombia.
Edgar is energetic and led workshop participants around the farm, pointing out organic materials that can be used and repurposed for fertilizer, his passion for organic agronomy apparent. Edgar founded the Gaicashi fertilizer plant, which efficiently and economically produces organic compost fertilizer at a large scale, contributing to the health and strength of the local soil ecology.
The Gaicashi method uses locally available waste products from coffee, rice, and cattle farms. The organic material is broken down by carefully-selected micro-organisms, making the process faster than most techniques commonly used by small scale farms.The fertilizers are produced at the larger-scale cooperative level, making them available to farmers at a lower cost than other organic or conventional fertilizers.
Today, the Gaicashi fertilizer plant leads Colombia in the production of organic inputs, with nearly 400 tons of fertilizer a month. Edgar often acts as a consultant to cooperatives who are interested in replicating the method with their own cooperatives. Besides acting as a trainer at the Food Security Solutions forum, Edgar is involved in a peer-to-peer training projects in Peru and Nicaragua, supported by Sustainable Harvest and Green Mountain Coffee. He is working with the Chirinos co-op and UCPCO to implement their own organic fertilizer plant. The idea is that the cooperatives will be able to produce high quality organic inputs for members, and produce excess volume to sell to other farmers in the area, creating a source of sustainable income that is operated by the co-op. To read more about this project, click here.