Finca Dos Aguas. Venezuela

FINCA DOS AGUAS

Photography: Irena Stein

Text: Axel Stein.

Book editor and graphic design: Diana Rangel

Seating in my small apartment in Las Palmas, Caracas, I was listening to my brother Eduardo telling me: “Would you like to see the piece of land my girlfriend Rosy and I bought recently up in the hills of El Junquito? -There is a nice view on the Caribbean sea from up there!�

The idea to be high in the mountains and see the vastness of an ocean is something that has always attracted me since we, as most Caraqueños, have taken the cable car built in the 1950’s to enjoy the ocean view from the beautiful modernist Humboldt Hotel, right on the ridge of a mountain range over Caracas. I thought it could be that if it’s a clear day, I could even see Los Roques, a paradisiac archipelago off the Litoral Central. After the inescapable traffic jam on the various Autopistas, we took the winding road that leads from La Yaguara on the western outskirts of Caracas to El Junquito, a mountain village (is it a village or a conglomerate?), a horse and mule stop in the past, converted into a popular weekend escape with fresh air, horses and cochino (pig) products as attractions…

I knew that further up that road, on a distant mountain range there was a picturesque small town called Colonia Tovar. The Tovar Colony was a small agricultural establishment founded by a noble man, the Count of Tovar, an advisor of the new Republic in the middle of the 19 C. Tovar helped bring a group of South German Colonists to develop agriculture near the capital. The immigrants brought with them the building traditions of Bavaria and adapted their European agricultural skills to the new tropical but tempered highlands.

I thought that​Eduardo was taking us closer to the Colonia but shortly after El Junquito we turned right on a small road crossing a dense and humid tropical jungle (the place is in the clouds most of the time) and drove down to a small mountain lake. The car stopped. This is where it becomes interesting, he said.

He stepped down, adjusted the 4 x 4 mechanisms on the front wheels of the Toyota machito and said no panic. I saw the ocean from that vantage point (about 6,000 feet) but I also saw that it was the end of the paved road. On each side, there was a ravine. We turned left and yes, a dirt road with potholes and rocks and some steep inclinations made us quite uncomfortable.

We could barely talk because the words were cut short by the bumps. The drive was tense and slow. We passed some cultivated onion, flowers and herbs fields, some small houses, some dogs barking, a bodega, more views on the ocean. Later, we turned right into a much smaller trail which finally brought us to a small house. I thought to myself: Rosy and Eduardo must be out of their mind‌ Here we are, he said triumphantly. Rosy was looking at him with a lovely smile. It is mainly thanks to Rosy’s savings that they had purchased that land that was for her an escape to her job in a publicity company in Caracas. And for him the first own land after cultivating in several spots around the country. After seeing many plots around Caracas, they found this place and it was Le coup de foudre, love at first sight. Why not, he said, we are at the right altitude for the vegetables I want to grow, we have water (although scarce in the dry season) and sure we can improve these poor, clayish and slopy soils.

We looked around and all we could see was a continued landscape of low, sun-resistant ferns covering the mountains; down on the right and on the left, two slopes of woods and small cultivated plots: there are two streams on each side, he added, we will call it Finca Dos Aguas, the Two Streams Farm.

Eduardo had graduated from Faculté de Gembloux, a prestigious Belgian Agricultural Academy.

He had traveled a lot while studying and visited several Kibbutz in Israel in the 1970´s and back to his home country, he held different jobs. Being only 25 he started a turkey farm from scratch for a French entrepreneur in Guiripa, further south. But it was always his goal to have his own agricultural operation. While figuring out how to proceed with the poor quality of the land, the lack of electricity, the bad road, the bush fires and plant pests, he developed a quite complicated and labor intensive endive operation with a school friend. The first and best ever produced in the country. He also planted green California asparagus on the worst slopes, since they were perennial and supported them with hard wood poles from a local wood mill, thanks to Felix, who sympathized with the couple and kindly sold them at really fair prices. Felix also supplied him with timber for planking to make the first terraces and prevent soil erosion.

Endives and asparagus soon had to be stopped when Venezuela opened its borders in 1991 and cheaper imports wiped out this kind of initiatives.

Eduardo’s vision was that the small farm had to cultivate only fine products not available in the market for Caracas good restaurants and portuguese-owned Fruterías and Supermercados.

Soon came exotic types of lettuce, cherry tomatoes, herbs, baby carrots and zucchinis.

The production kept growing and was being sold in bags with a brand, something new in the country. Dos Aguas was a pioneer in most of its products. The endive plant was soon transformed in a very basic salad plant at first, and ever more sophisticated later on. It was a long struggle for the couple to introduce electricity in their sector, improve the Valley road with the local people and then getting the government to build it in concrete. The farm was always at the forefront in keeping it clean and patching its holes. No telephone there either, attempts with radios, radiotelephones, the first cell phones, it was an ordeal to communicate with the city.

Irena has asked me to write a few words as an introduction to this book with her photos taken during her several visits to the farm.​ I believe a bit of history is necessary to truly understand the miracle that Eduardo and Rosy have made possible in Tibroncito. Today, more than 30 years after its founding, FDA is a model for any agricultural enterprise in Venezuela and beyond. With more than 200 employees, Finca dos Aguas has managed to thrive in the past 15 years against all odds. La Revolución, as they call the Chávez years tried to take away the farm from them and “give it to the workers” in 2009.

Thanks to a combative legion of longtime employees who benefit with relatively high salaries and all kind of social benefits, including housing, extensive loans, monthly bonuses linked to production, subsidies in medical costs, the socialist government was unable to seize the grounds.

FDA is not only the most prosperous agricultural operation in the northern ​ Vargas State, it manages to pack and sell a great variety of salads, baby vegetables and herbs in all Venezuela. Several refrigerated trucks leave the farm early every morning, while Rosy and her team solve all kinds of problems from the office in Caracas. Eduardo and Rosy´s sustainable operation is a dream come true. A promise hard to keep nowadays in an ever turbulent country.

The brother and sister share the love of great quality food products. Irena, an accomplished photographer is also the owner of Alma Cocina Latina, one of the best and more creative restaurants in the Baltimore-Wahington area. I am very happy to introduce this beautiful book: I have witnessed the growth of Eduardo´s first endives and I have seen Irena serving her first salad. Two kindred spirits meet in this book as a testimony of things well done.

Axel Stein