Panama is known for it’s abundant food production. Over half of the three million plus population live in or near Panama City. The rest of the small country is very sparsely populated other than the cities of Colon at the caribbean entrance of the canal and David in Chiriqui province near the Costa Rican border. The low density of the nations geography allows for plenty of land to be used for agriculture. Almost everywhere you look their are food sources. Cows are nearly everywhere. Corn and rice are predominate crops nearly all over the country. Chiriqui is known as the bread basket of Panama. In Chiriqui people grow everything from international award winning coffee to incredibly delicious fruits and vegetables like strawberries, pineapples and broccoli. If I were not a surfer and addicted to the ocean I would want to live in the chilly, abundantly agriculturally rich and stunningly beautiful Chiriqui highlands.
Here in Los Santos Province where Ojo de Agua is located it is rare to see a yard with out food growing in it or chickens running around. Panamanians eat a lot of poultry. They make a chicken soup called Sancocho. It is cooked up almost every sunday and Panamanians love to serve it at almost every special occasion.
I am doing my best to follow the locals lead by planting crops anywhere I have space. I have already planted corn, yuca, platanos, bananas, pigeon pea or guandu, pineapple, peppers, cucumbers and melons to go along with all the fruit trees planted back in 2007 such as papaya, oranges, limes, mango’s, healing noni fruit, star fruit, guava, tropical cherries, and of course coconut palms.
My plan is to always have many different crops growing for my consumption and for future neighbors to propagate.
One thing is for sure here in Panama, one will never go hungry, food is always growing or grazing somewhere nearby.
Here are a few photos of some of the food producing at the moment, plus a photo of the local church in Canas with it’s new paint job.
Enjoy,