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Pink carrots from Guatemala? |
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Sunburst pumpkins
Photo: Sean Sprague/Oxfam |
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Crops are picked by the farmers in the morning. The farmers then
arrange for them to be taken by bus to the packing plant. They are
unloaded and weighed in from around 2pm each day.
Vegetables such as courgettes and sunburst pumpkins are washed,
but green beans are not, because this would encourage them to rot.
The vegetables are cooled for transport and packed into boxes.
At 6pm they are put on to crates and taken to the airport. They
arrive fresh in the USA the next day and are eaten by people thousands
of miles from where they were produced!
OPCION also has a greenhouse where it experiments with growing
new varieties of crops, for instance pink and yellow carrots! These
have a novelty value and will sell well to the specialist market
in the USA.
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Meet Florencio
“Working with OPCION has made
my life better. Now I can work the land in the morning and
go to school in the afternoon.” |
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