La composta mexicana (A very Mexican compost)

One thing that I’m learning about the Mexican education system is that theory and practice don’t always correspond. Both of my Agriculture-Economics classes involve hands-on gardening experiences. In one class I’m on the “equipo de espinaca” (spinach team), though formerly the tomato team. According to the class syllabus, this is more than simply a fun outdoor activity because we are supposed to research ideal soil compositions, complementary plants that can boost the growth of our target crop, and natural pesticides. But when heavy rains hit Puebla two weeks into the semester, we not only abandoned our pitiful tomato seeds but also the notion of specializing growing conditions to different plants. The new planting project treated all seeds equally. We began with a new planting project, this time one that treated all seeds equally (perhaps a telling sign of the pervasiveness of Marxism in studies of economics in Mexico). One day we dedicated an entire class period to sticking our hands in pots of soil, poking holes in which we carefully dropped a few seeds at a time, covering this up with more soil and sprinkling the whole thing with water. It’s great to broaden my (miniscule) knowledge of horticulture, but I’m starting to wonder what happened to the economics.

I also can’t help but chuckle at the compost project in my other class. We spent about two weeks researching different compost mixtures depending on the climate and desired crops. We discussed finding a balance between acid and basic materials such as by adding moderate amounts of citrus peels or coffee grounds. But when it came to constructing the actual compost, all theory was thrown out the window. What was thrown in seemed more like something from the kitchen trash can: tortillas, avocado pits and skins, cabbages, pieces of bread, lemon rinds—basically all the major food groups of Mexican cuisine. This was mixed with an excessive amount of rabbit poop from one of my classmate’s farm (or was it his backyard fallen victim to the Fibonacci sequence of rabbit breeding?). Not surprisingly about a week after we set up the compost our professor announced that the compost had “fallen out of equilibrium.” The telling sign: the stench of the compost that could be detected a number of feet away.