Corn Fields in Southern Mexico

I haven't posted in 7 months but tonight do or die I will post a few things of the past week. Later I will post some pics by themes rather than by date. Two days ago we had a tour of our corn fields with top officials including a Under-secretary of Agriculture [back row left is Ernesto with under-secretary in the middle] who was extremely pleased with not only the corn but the enthusiasm of the field agronomists, farmer and especially wives of the farmers. This is what drives me -- to see joy and happiness in the faces and lives of the common people, the ones that could be considered the least important normally. It seems so impossible why none of the competition (or anyone else) sees the truth of what we are doing but we in all rreality have no competition. Maybe the answer is in a question the Under-secretary asked us: "how do you all get the people so convinced, motivated and excited about following your advice?" The answer to that is where the magic really is. We believe in our hearts that what we do is vital and correct. And we then talk heart to heart to them. [see my quote in the next blog about what my Mom taught me in my youth] .

........... In the 4th pic our field is on the left at an Experiment Station with the gov'ts prised researchers going toe to toe with us. This INIFAP organization has been fighting us for 15 years saying we have not validated anything that we are doing. And we tell them we are NOT doing basic research but are applying knowledge in a production setting to improve NET profits. Even though theirs was planted before ours they will not even come close to 50% of our yield.
........One of the most interesting situation is with Doña Emilia, a Maya from Campeche, who farms 275 acres (extremely ambitious since all her neighbors farm only around 25-30 acres) with her husband and daughters with only one tractor they recently obtained with gov't participation. She increased her plant density from the normal of 20-25,000 plants per acre (detail is for Jason's benefit) to our desired level of 35-40,000 plants. On one 2.5 acre field she decided to do what we had talked about --that of having 2 rows per bed. But normally then with 2 rows we have a few less per row which spreads the plants out so none are on top of each other competing for nutrients and water. She decided to run planter two times across this 2.5 acres but did not reduce rate and so she ended up with 80 to 85,000 plants per acre. [Jason notice that the rows are 18" apart] If we can help her fill out all the ears of corn she will surely have a record yield. We are doubling all recommendations and all effort. We would never ourselves recommend such a high rate since a failure would hurt us and everyone but since it was her idea we can only benefit from the experience. I wish i could play her recorded interview b/c she has such a huge believing heart and optimistic faithful attitude that it is infectious. She beams with her smile like her when she feed us all after the tour.