[Laney Siegner, ERG graduate student]

Food on the Galapagos: Local ingredients and local volcanic soil

A quick summary of my recent trip to the Galapagos could read like a line from Snoop Dogg’s “Sensual Seduction”: coffee liqueur, rich dark chocolate, and passion fruit pie—showering under waterfalls in the jungle, perfumed tropical flowers in my hair. These phrases conjure up idyllic imagery but obscure much more than they reveal. My journey “behind the scenes” of Galapagos' agricultural activities led to revelations about the difficult realities facing many small island farmers.

Galapagos Islands (red box), off the coast of continental Ecuador

Fresh fruit rotting on the ground, excess vegetables lying uneaten on farms or fed to animals, costs of transport outweighing profits to be gained in local markets—these are a few of the challenges facing a declining agricultural sector on the Galapagos. Despite efforts by local organizations such as Conservation International, the Charles Darwin Foundation, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Aquaculture and Fisheries (MAGAP) to increase and revitalize local food production, many galapagüeños are leaving the agricultural fields of the highlands in favor of better-paying jobs in the tourism industry of coastal port towns.

Saturday Market, 6:30 am

Agricultural activity has been increasing in recent years, but certainly is no longer at the levels seen before the boats started providing regular food production from the mainland. Boats arrive in the islands weekly (for the most part), bearing produce from continental Ecuador 1000 km away, supplying about 80% of local food consumption, and lowering prices due to higher production levels on mainland farms. With the prohibitively high cost of transport to the markets ($15 for the 20 km drive), local farmers are often forced to let their produce go to waste as it won’t produce sufficient returns to justify this up-front cost. Better communication and union, called for by Jose Angel Ortiz, might help solve this problem if neighboring farmers pool resources to buy an old truck for transporting produce to market. However, in a region where many neighboring farms are recently abandoned, this is not always possible.

​​Checking out Angel Ortiz's tomato plants

Besides being dependent on food imports from the mainland, the Galapagos are also dependent on petroleum imports for energy production. The Interpretation Center on San Cristobal Island declares a goal of 100% fossil-free energy production by 2017. The islands, however, are far from reaching this goal, having missed their 50% renewables goal by 2010. There is little evidence of renewable energy generation on the islands; other than three windmills at the top of a hill on San Cristobal and solar panels at the Giant Tortoise Birthing Center and Charles Darwin Foundation on Santa Cruz. Twenty-four hour electricity service, powered by petroleum products, is a relatively recent occurrence on the four inhabited islands, and service doesn’t fully extend to all of the farms in the highlands.

There are, however, signs of hope for scaling up island food and energy self-sufficiency. On March 19th, there was a cheering promotion of local food consumption at the Galapagos Earth Hour celebration; part of an international network of such events held in over 150 countries. Earth Hour, which lasts from 8:30pm to 9:30pm, is a call to action for communities to turn off the lights and look inwards for solutions to addressing climate change. The Galapagos chose to highlight local food production as their “local solution,” bringing producers and consumers together for a night of cooking competitions, taste tests, and trivia celebrating the 80+ local food products on the islands. From seafood to tropical fruits, from the mundane yucca root to the exalted cacao, it was a night of food diversity and appreciation.

Entries in the local cooking competition at Earth Hour Galapagos (3/19/16)

David Ibarra’s Waterfront Inn restaurant is another sign of hope on Santa Cruz. After noticing the local produce highlighted on a restaurant menu in Puerto Ayora, my sister, Katie, and I asked some employees about the chef. We were directed to David at his new restaurant across the bay. We hopped in a water taxi and found that David was in an “important meeting” when we arrived, but he invited us back for dinner the following night. We showed up Friday night for an amazing locally sourced meal that would put any San Francisco farm to table restaurant to shame.

When he finished cooking, David came out to talk to us about the extensive contacts he’s made among island farmers and fishermen since arriving a little over a year ago. Inviting us to continue the conversation at a popular local bar, he went on at length about his views on the value of sourcing food from local farmers. He has big plans to increase local consumption through his “Cocinas de Evolución” project, a cooking class that infuses local ingredients into fancy French and European cooking methods popular worldwide.

Katie and Laney at Milton's farm, Finca de Guadalupe​

Milton Aguas’ eco-farm on San Cristobal, La Finca de Guadalupe, is a final example of inspiration from our island-hopping food tour. We traveled with Milton and his wife Norma to their farm. It was a bumpy ride down unpaved and washed-out roads.We braved the bugs of the jungle to hike to their waterfall-shower and sweated through the process of pressing sugar canes into juice by hand. We made dinner of freshly harvested coconut milk and herbs over fish with rice and fried plantains. Afterwards, we processed coffee beans and made passion fruit juice until past midnight. "Fresh fruit doesn’t wait," Norma reminded us.

Coffee project demonstration

Milton shared stories of volunteer groups and university students that have come to the farm to help out and learn from his sustainable agriculture practices. Milton would like to make the farm completely “clean” and self-sufficient by generating his own electricity and processing sugar cane into biofuels. (A future ERGie project or group community service trip, perhaps?! Sugar cane biofuel production on Milton’s farm – Spring Break 2017!) Those who love coffee as much as I do are almost obligated to come: the volcanic, earthy flavor of his coffee is truly “único en el mundo,” like drinking from a river of gold, in Milton’s poetic Spanish phrasing.

My journey to the Galapagos was an eye-opening encounter with interesting plants and people. It was not always comfortable or "Edenic," but rather showed signs of struggle for local sovereignty and sustainability. Investigating local food production on small islands may often be this way, and now I know a little more about where the "farm" in "farm to table" is coming from.

Katie and Laney pressing sugar cane into juice on the Galapagos

[by Rebekah Shirley, ERG PhD Candidate]

Can an innovation in charging vehicles turn into the vehicle for more innovation? What works, what sticks? May be risky business to find out, but it’s well worth the ride…

Electric Jeepney (eJeepney) plying on the streets of metro Manila

It is a bright, sunny morning in the steamy Metro Manila. Men in wilting business suits and women waving folding hand fans scuttle into the shady respite offered by blue construction tarpaulin billowing overhead. Yet another new office high rise being built, squeezed into the bursting Manila skyline. Carefully skipping over mud puddles of cement mix, I follow the pedestrians hustling down Tuazon Avenue sharing the roadway with brawny buses, swerving motorcycles, honking taxis and the iconic, kaleidoscopic jeepneys. I am in the Philippines visiting the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (iCSC) - a local Filipino NGO focused on community empowerment and clean energy solutions. They birthed the famous ejeepney, an electric battery powered version of the local minibus - a successful first fruit of clean, electric public transportation for the developing world. With a surging population of almost twelve million metropolitan Manila is one of the emerging cities of Southeast Asia and cleaner, cheaper ways of transporting throngs of people to and fro are now imperative.

As the city blossoms it also becomes more vulnerable to the impact of natural disasters - something the island archipelago is already familiar with. Memories of Typhoon Yolanda hang in the air of our discussion at the iCSC head office, a groovy alcove of repurposed furniture and hand painted windows overlooking an old trade fair. “Filipinos have been adapting since before it was en vogue,” Red chuckles. Renato ‘Red’ Constantino is the Executive Director of iCSC and all around visionary. “Mitigation, adaptation, can we truly separate these ideas?” he asks, with palms outstretched, as though holding the very words in his hands. A tattoo snake slithers up his left arm and his wrists are banded with a charming collection of bracelets and amulets. With spikey black and gray peppered hair and red worn boots, he is the stuff of adventure tales. “It is not about warding off danger or merely coping with the times. It is about building better, healthier, stronger, resilient cities, no matter what the future holds.” His philosophy is compelling and indeed, iCSC has had recent success lobbying the government for a legislative fund to support community capacity building - aptly named the People’s Survival Fund.

Rebekah and Reina in Tacloban. In the background is a container ship that is marooned on land by the typhoon.

Red’s team is a select handful of policy experts and technology managers, all home grown and passionate about environmental activism in the Philippines. The beautiful Reina Garcia has managed the ejeepney program since its inception in 2005. She takes me out to see the fleet in action. iCSC has found local battery manufacturers and a local electric vehicle manufacturer able to assemble the jeepneys at low cost. Made of light weight metal and without the need for a rumbling diesel engine, the ejeepney offers a quieter, cooler ride to passengers, all while reaping the savings from no fuel cost. A subsidiary company now operates twenty ejeepneys, routed throughout the metropolitan region. iCSC hopes that the model will be adopted by other jeepney operators in the near future. “They’ve integrated quite seamlessly,” Reina tells me. “Anyone would jump into an ejeepney, most without even knowing they are in an electric vehicle.” We hop into one for a ride to the charging stations and chat with some of the drivers – all women. In fact half the fleet is operated by female drivers, an iCSC strategy to promote employment equality. It is refreshing to see a simple, functional operation working so steadily for years in the tropics. It parallels the team’s action-oriented tone of simplicity and efficiency. Bottom-up technologies that work: no catch, no twist, no hidden charges.

Tacloban City on the island of Leyte, leveled by Typhoon Yolanda

These are exactly the types of solutions that the Philippines needs right now, especially in the wake of Typhoon Yolanda and with the promise of stronger, larger storms to come. Yolanda struck the Philippines last November and went down in history as the largest typhoon ever to make landfall. I got the chance to visit Leyte, the island most devastated by Yolanda, and Tacloban, its capital – which was completely leveled. It was a tremendously moving experience. From the moment of getting off the plane at the ghostly remains of the airport, it felt like being on the set of an eerie end times post-apocalyptic movie. Rows and streets of houses, churches, malls, completely reduced to rubble. Ships stranded hundreds of meters inland. Blue and white relief aid tents stretched for miles on end. iCSC is now expanding the ejeepney operation here, to be part of the respond and rebuild effort as transportation is still a scarcity. Every so often a jeepney passes by with people piled onto the roof, risking limb for a precious ride in to or out of the city. Teddy Arellano is the special project’s manager and he lets me tag along as he travels through Tacloban surveying new the operation sites, signing leases, meeting contractors. The ejeepney holding bay and charging station will be solar powered, Teddy tells me, and they want to try a new idea: mobile charging stations – driving the ejeepneys to communities still left without electricity and charging phones, radios, anything, through the vehicle batteries.

Standard diesel-powered Jeepney on the streets of Tacloban

“It will be our little experiment” laughs the affable Teddy with a playful smile. Someone has to be willing to take the risk to see what works, what sticks. As we travel through the torn city I marvel at his calm and ease. Teddy greets everyone we meet with a comforting familiarity, jokes ready in hand. He chats to families with deep condolence but also with a pleasantness that makes the air less solemn. He points out to me all the progress, the new stores, the neighbor helping neighbor rebuild what was lost. Positive, purposed and practical, the iCSC team speaks volumes to me about the true meaning of bottom-up engagement. They are not in the business here of bemoaning tragedy or laying blame to a slow emergency response. Rather, the team is taking up the challenge and opportunity to study a new technology’s usefulness and economy in the space of most urgent need. Unlike the stormy waters, sorrow and pain have not yet subsided in the Philippines, but human nature is resilient. If I’ve learned anything from my time with iCSC, it is that hope can bring the change that people need. Hope can make ideas reality. Hope can stand as the foundation for resilient cities of the future. I’ll be sure to stay posted on the ejeepney’s journey to Tacloban.

Read more on the ejeepney's journey to Tacloban here:  http://pacifictimes.org/blog/2014/05/20/630/

Note: The views expressed here belong solely to the author of each entry and are not representative of the position of the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley.