SCD2 IN PATCHAKAN

Sustainable |səˈstānəbəl|
adjective: able to be maintained at a certain rate or level

Community |kə-myoōnitē|
noun: a group of people living together in one place, especially one practicing common ownership

Development |di-veləpmənt|
noun: a specified state of growth or advancement

Though there is no true or right definition for sustainable community development, our purpose this week was to see how healthy development work ought to be done, in socially, economically, and environmentally responsible ways. Particularly this week we talked about food systems and how developing countries are affected by agricultural development projects. We spent part of the week in northern Belize in a Mayan village called Patchakan, a community that has been deeply shaped by the presence of large-scale export industries including papaya and sugar. We were fortunate to hear the story from both sides – from the tour guides of the factories that we visited and from the manual laborers whom we stayed with in our homestays. Next time you visit the grocery store, look in the produce department and you’ll likely find papayas exported from Belize by Brooks Tropicals, the fields and packing plant we got to visit this week. Also, it’s possible that some of the sugar you’re putting in your coffee or baking with is from the sugar cane fields of Patchakan, Belize. In fact, the food we consume each and every day has traveled an average of 1500 miles before it makes it to our tables. We spent a lot of time talking about alternatives and found some really neat information. For instance, if a family were to eat one meal a week of locally produced food (though CCSP hopes all of your meals would be local!), we would save 880 million barrels of oil per year. Sometimes the answers are in the math.