One of the main joys of Eclipse Chasing is to go to some of the furthermost parts of the globe. The alignment of sun and moon to create an eclipse is no respecter of national boundaries or the distance one needs to travel and this has led me to a number of out-of-the-way locations all over the world, ranging from the Sahara and Gobi deserts to the forests of Yucatan. One of the more obscure joys, though, is to examine the agriculture of the areas one goes to or passes through.
In April 2024, I was lucky enough to go to Mexico for a total eclipse and the stand-out agricultural method there was the “three sisters” of maize, beans and squash. The beans grow up the maize and fix nitrogen into the soil while the squash leaves cool down the ground and keep in moisture.
In October 2024 I went to Rapa Nui (aka Easter Island) in the eastern Pacific for an annular eclipse. This is when the Moon is too far away from the Earth to quite cover the sun, leaving a ring (or annulus from Latin) of sun around the moon.
The island is a 5½ hour plane journey from Santiago in Chile (who lay claim to the island) so is pretty isolated! As it’s also the only bit of land for thousands of miles, it’s pretty windswept. It’s mainly known for the Moai statues erected sometime between 1200 and 1700 AD by the indigenous population, who themselves have only been on the island since around 1000AD.
Importing food is expensive! It either comes by air or is delivered by small tender boats from larger cargo vessels as Rapa Nui doesn’t have a deep sea port. There is, therefore, a necessity to grow as much as possible on the island itself and nearly all houses will have a productive vegetable garden. Because of the land ownership rules, there is little intensive mono-culture cultivation and mixed crop growing is the rule.
What Rapa Nui has in abundance, though, is very fertile volcanic soil. They can grow tropical plants like bananas and pineapples as well as crops we might grow in Europe, like sweet potato. They also grow (lots of) potatoes and salad veg like lettuce and tomatoes.
At the eclipse site was a large plot (about 4 acres) with mixed planting…
On the right is Sweet Potato (I wondered what it looked like when growing!), next left is lettuce, then Taro followed by ordinary potatoes. It was rather gratifying to see that some of their lettuce had bolted just like in a British garden ☺. Taro is a root vegetable, similar to yam and known as dasheen in the West Indies. On Rapa Nui I tried it as a dessert cake. Quite bland with a texture similar to a coarse steamed rice cake.
In the background you can see lots of netting cages. These contain avocado trees and the netting acts as a windbreak. In the middle distance are tomatoes and more potatoes (they love their chips as much as anyone!). There’s also some Tapioca hidden in there somewhere.
Further over to the left you can see bananas growing and they were accompanied by pineapples.
Hands up those of you that thought pineapples grew on trees! Bananas aren’t trees either. They’re the largest herbaceous flowering plant and are grown from offsets that form at the base of the main plant. Essentially, they’re “annuals”, though the growing cycle is typically 6-9 months in the areas where they grow well. Rapa Nui is a bit cool and windy but they do grow well there if protected.
The inhabitants are very inventive when it comes to protecting plants from the wind and its desiccating effects. One of the coolest I saw was the use of those large plastic bottles they use in water coolers as cloches!
Following on from Rapa Nui, I went to Peru to visit Machu Picchu and Cuzco. These were strongholds of the Inca empire before the invading Spaniards under Pizarro and their many indigenous allies defeated the Incas. As in Mexico, where the Aztec’s subjugated peoples joined Cortez’s Spaniards, the old maxim of “My Enemy’s enemy is my Friend” allowed a small force to defeat a much stronger opposition. The Sacred Valley is the route of the Urubamba river which runs down from Cuzco (at 3,400 metres altitude!) past Machu Picchu towards the Amazon.
Rapa Nui is at 27 degrees south, the same as South Africa and Brisbane in Australia. Southern Florida is about the same latitude north. The Sacred Valley is at 13 degrees south, the same as Angola, Indonesia and New Guinea. The seasons are, therefore, tropical rather than the sub-tropical of Rapa Nui. Temperatures in the Sacred Valley average 12C even in the coldest months (July) with a moderate rainy season between October and April. They get about 500mm of rain every year (we get about 750mm in Somerset) which is adequate but the Incas built a system of terraces and irrigation to supplement the rainfall with river water.
Seasons don’t matter much in the Sacred Valley and it’s possible to get 2 or even 3 crops each year. Here’s a field with two successions of Maize growing…
(This was taken from the window of a moving train, so apologies for the quality!)
Note that the maize is planted on ridges. The irrigation system is simply to let water run down the furrows between the ridges.
The Sacred Valley and its environs are the original home to the potato (there are about 4,000 different species) and to quinoa and a number of other cereals. It’s very much the “bread basket” of Peru producing large quantities of maize, potatoes, root vegetables, chillies and all the vegetables and salads we’re used to.
On top of this there is significant production of Coca leaf which is ubiquitous in the high Andes. It’s either chewed like tobacco (not for me!) or consumed as a “tea” (which is very nice). It acts as a stimulant and aids avoiding altitude sickness. The other “tea” is made from Muna, or Andean Mint. This is quite strong – stronger than the mint tea we usually drink here – but has a bit of sweetness thrown in.
Two areas – Rapa Nui and the Sacred Valley – which are very different in climate and therefore agriculture. Next time you’re away from green Somerset, have a look at how the local agriculture works. You are What You Eat and the agriculture can often get you closer to the people of the land you’re visiting – both present and those from the past.