Morning begins early in the latifundia. Chickens, ducks and their compatriots make their presence known to the farmers, the millers, the foragers, the drivers, the pesticide shotters and other petite business peoples. Rusted motorbike engines are kicked a few times before they hum to motion and fade out of earshot. On the bikes are balaclava-clad men and women with thick skin and weathered faces. They head into the crisp air into the fields, the mills, the mountain or the markets.
I come out of my house and thrash at my own rusted motorbike before it hums to motion. I leave my street, which lays parallel to an irrigation canal and turn left driving past a cow pasture. After a few moments the road turns to dirt and on my right a vast stretch of rice fields reveals itself, the thick mountain forest looming behind it. I reach a junction, if I were to turn right I would pass the buffalo pasture at the foot of the mountain. The herders there are not friendly, but kind enough, they allow me to wander around the expanse at my leisure. The pasture now is near barren, the invasive elephant grass exploded during the rainy season, now only to be cleared by the buffalo herd has left the land empty.
Today though I turn left, onto the forest road that runs parallel to the steep mountain gradient, dotted with the occasional illegal settler cabin, ramshackle homes made from wood, corrugated iron and old vinyl sheet advertisements. I spot a few battered motorbikes parked at the bottom of invisible trails up into the hill. Foragers, looking for whatever is in season, mushrooms, nuts, orchids, herbs… Further up the mountain villages grow highland suited crops like cabbages, corn, pineapples, oranges, more corn, potatoes… but mostly cabbages. The cabbage trucks fly up and down the mountain roads, the drivers stereotypically hopped up on methamphetamines.
I reach another intersection, if I turn left I’ll reach a mill and a juice processing facility, from which the pickup trucks come and go. I turn right, going deeper into the hills. I pass a small hamlet, the terraced rice paddies here have reached harvesting season, middle aged maize crops grow in the steeper fields.
Beyond the hamlet, I turn onto another dirt road. This is a site of much commotion in the village over the past decade. The government has been trying to build a reservoir here and a hydroelectric dam, much to the antagonisms of the locals, as it would interfere with their irrigation canals. It once seemed that the villagers’ protests had forced them off, but over the past 2 years, construction of the dam had begun surreptitiously, large trucks and machinery had been seen bumbling down the muddy dirt road.
Last week, there was a late flash flood which had temporarily enveloped my village in water; the locals call it forest water. Soaking my house, albeit for just an hour. The water had come directly from the irrigation canal, which in turn, had come from the mountain stream that the government had intended to feed the new dam.
At the dam site the dirt road gives way to a vast expanse of red soil, an expanse larger than the village itself. The dam has clearly been under construction for some time now. The land for the reservoir turned upside down, I see shattered building materials pulled apart by the flash flood scattered across the now shallow stream.
But I didn’t come here to expose the dam project. Everyone in the village already knows about that. I came here to go for a walk up the stream. I take off my shoes and socks, pop them in my bag and plunge my ankles into the cold clear mountain water.
Walking upstream, as I clamber over boulders, I’m brushed by kaleidoscopes of butterflies. I see tiny fish fry in the deeper pools and boar tracks along some sandy banks. I collect some wild herbs along the way and a broken twig drifting downstream with reishi mushrooms growing atop it, a souvenir for further cultivation back home.
I know these forests well. Not too far north, far from paved roads, lies a hidden Lisu cemetery with 6 family tombs which sit in a small clearing, occasionally refreshed by offerings of flowers and Fanta bottles. A little east from there the same community has a shrine for Amphoe Moohee, the god of the mountain. It’s adored with wood carved weapons. Guns, spears and swords, their tips painted red as blood, intended for Moohee’s use in fighting away any harmful spirits.
The shrine is tended to by the village doctor, most would call him a witch doctor but he calls himself a village doctor and so that’s what I call him too. He’s a nice enough man, stout, thick skinned with a weathered face. The forest is loud, we have to raise our voices to talk over the cicadas, crickets, birds, beetles, whatever is making all that racket. A beehive next to the shrine protrudes outwards, “there’s no honey in there” he tells me before I ask, he reliably informs me that the hive is over 30 years old.
The forest is alive, thriving, wealthy. The stream that I’m walking up is loud, gushing, rich. I am rocked by the slow ebb of the water.
The water travels south, it feeds the people in the valley, who are poor, very poor. When the flood came last week it destroyed much of the dam site and went on to wash away some of the squatters’ homes entirely.
Latifundias
I watch the clouds roll over the hills and get soaked to the skin in the rain that falls down, before it trickles onwards to the rice fields in the valley below. This river irrigates the paddies, as well as filling the canals, which historically also served as the key transport infrastructure of the region.
The rice will stew and grow, before being harvested and sent south, what’s deemed low-quality product will be redistributed to the domestic market, while the high-quality grain will be reserved for export. I’ve heard on more than one occasion, speaking to those that have lived in the west, how shocked they were at the higher quality of rice on the western market, rice that is grown back home.
This is a latifundia, a term generally referring to large agricultural plantations located on an empire’s periphery. The word traces its roots to the Roman Empire, and the vast plantations carved into the edges of their dominion. These fields, worked by enslaved hands, yielded immense surpluses—enough to feed the heart of the empire. To sustain their relentless growth, these estates devoured more land and demanded ever more labour, their reach always pushing outward. These Roman latifundia were the precursors to imperial governance and mechanized agriculture. History carried the term forward: the 19th century Spanish and Portuguese empires referred to their colonial slave plantations as latifundios in Latin America and Asia.
Today, the word is used in reference to the global south’s vast industrialized agricultural expanse. Think of the boundless cattle ranches of Brazil, where herds stretch to the horizon; the sun-soaked fruit farms of Morocco; the verdant tea plantations of Kenya; and the waterlogged rice paddies of Southeast Asia.
Modern latifundia are defined not just by their size but by their purpose: the creation of vast surpluses, far beyond the needs of those who live on or near the land. These surpluses are destined for export, feeding distant markets while driving an insatiable hunger for expansion. In contrast, traditional farming communities lived by a different rhythm—one of balance. They cultivated only what was needed, perhaps a little extra, but never so much as to push the boundaries of the land endlessly outward to its detriment.
Yet, not all agriculture has succumbed to this model. In some places, the old ways persist, albeit within a modern framework. Not every corner of the global south can be called a latifundia. Consider the fruit farms of Sierra Leone or the grain fields of Chile. These regions, too, are exploited by global powers, but not for agricultural surplus. Their wealth lies in other resources: iron ore, cheap garments, etc. In these economies, food is grown primarily for local sustenance, serving those who toil within their borders rather than feeding the far-off imperial core. In these cases, local agricultural systems are typically self-sustaining. It is often more economically viable for such regions to focus on feeding their domestic workforce rather than producing massive food surpluses for export.
Indeed, Europe is not immune to the latifundia. The grain-rich flatlands of eastern Romania and the vast greenhouses of southern Spain embody the same principles of mass surplus-driven agriculture, their produce flowing largely north to feed the imperial core.
Ultimately, the concept of a latifundia is fluid, shaped by a constellation of political, economic, and geographic forces. It is not a fixed definition, not a scientific definition, but a tapestry woven through history and circumstance.
The Final Port
For now though, I sit on a rock in the stream, feeling the waters flow. I am rocked by the slow ebb of the water running through my legs, down the hill into those irrigation canals, giving life to the paddy fields, the buffalo pastures and orchards, in turn ripening their harvest, be it vegetable, fruit, meat or fibre. These commodities will then be pulled from the wet earth and enter the market. Typically not the market that bustles a few kilometres east of my village, but the global market, where all is commodified, be it the vegetable, fruit, meat or fibre. Or be it the wet soil, the land itself, the harvesters labour, the millers, the drivers, the pesticide shotters on their rusted motorbikes. Ultimately, the water that I can feel flowing is one of the billions of veins that feeds into the circulatory system of this great universal market.
This water I can feel flowing is the life giver of these commodities, I witness their slow birth in the valley below on a daily basis. It wasn’t so long ago however, that I was at the complete opposite end of their lifespan. Just a few years prior to sitting perched on a rock in the stream, I was working in a food co-op in London. One which, primarily, dealt in excess unwanted food surplus. In short, we were redistributing soon to be food waste to those who needed it.
Glitches in that long supply chain would form cracks from which produce rained down. Perhaps the public have lost their taste for cucumbers one summer, or there was an over production of oranges. Maybe a harvest of yams was 2 cm too long to meet the standards of the supermarket. Or maybe the cost of storing the excess of tinned pineapple was more than the cost of simply throwing them away. Whatever the reason, we were their last chance before the landfill.
Vans would park their asses up, opening their back doors, and we would use our bodies to carry the mountains of rice, vegetables, fruits, grains, nuts and processed whatevers into the warehouse, where we would sort it, often clean it, and redistribute it. The penultimate stop on the produce’s journey before the kitchen. Indeed, the longest journey it could take, having failed to meet the demands of the supermarket.
As we pile up the goods in the uninspiring warehouse we unwrap their plastic packaging. Box by box, sack by sack, revealing the fecund bounty that lies inside. We pour it into crates, oranges, plums, peppers, carrots, onions, aubergines, potatoes… The potatoes are the most troublesome. One bad potato in the sack turns to a pungent viscous mucus; the stench pierces the nostrils and wraps itself around its brothers. We spend hours sat on the floor scrubbing the filthy potatoes, the most unwanted of all unwanted produce.
I see unimaginable wealth thrown at us for free. One day tens of thousands of blueberries show up, days away from expiry. Another day a 50 kg burlap sack of cacao nibs arrives, worth nearly half its weight in gold. We don’t ask questions about where it comes from.
This unwanted treasure starts to drive me insane. The supply chains, the cracks in the global agricultural infrastructure, the endless mountains of discarded excess. I know where it comes from, I’ve lived in the paddy fields and orchards, I’ve felt the cold stream waters flow into the irrigation canals already. Now I know where it ends up. The final port of call, a disused local government office building-cum-storage warehouse in North London. The stream’s flow travelled down into the valley and north towards the imperial core.
You don’t need to be much of a Marxist to see how it got from A to Z. From the latifundia to the imperial core. The water’s flow didn’t simply carry it there. The irrigation canals didn’t dredge themselves. Someone cleared the forest, ploughed the land, sowed the seeds, cared for the saplings and harvested their fruits. Someone took them from the field to the factory, to the port, to the sea, to the logistics hubs, to the supermarket, back to the van and to our warehouse where I carried them in, unpacked and washed them clean.
This chain can at times appear simple, but it is the sheer depth and sophistication of the structure that begins to induce my insanity. I hold in my hands a can of Heinz baked beans. I want to know where it comes from. It reads: “Made in The United Kingdom”. Look at the ingredients: Beans (50%), Tomatoes (36%), Water, Sugar, Spirit Vinegar, Modified Cornflour, Salt, Spice Extracts, Herb Extract. Ok. Here, the word ‘made’ conceals and obscures more than it illuminates.
Let’s start. Where do the Beans come from? Check the Heinz website “Made in The UK”, ok, but where do the beans come from? It’s not clear. Ok. See who Heinz’s suppliers are. Check their parent company Kraft Heinz’s website. Spend an hour or two wading through corporate P.R. “Supply Partners” is the term I’m looking for. Ok. More wading through corporate P.R… Seems like the beans come from a handful of mega-farms in North to Central America. Ok. How about the Tomatoes. Another list of suppliers, The Americas, Spain… But wait… These suppliers are just where companies are headquartered. Go back to the Kraftheinz’s website and their maze of P.R. They have a downloadable PDF in almost 30 languages, Chinese, Spanish, Spanish (Mexico), Urdu, Czech, Malay, Thai. I read the Thai PDF. More P.R. A hall of smoke filled mirrors. Back at the ingredients list. “Modified Cornflour”, *dingding*. Thailand is the largest producer of corn/maize in Asia, including China. Maybe shapes are starting to form in the smoky hall of mirrors. Maybe not. The obfuscation is too much to bear. In sets the insanity.
Where is the cornflour modified? Who modified it and how? Where does the Spirit Vinegar come from? What about the Herb Extracts? Where are the herbs from? What kind of herbs even are they? Who grew them? Who extracted them? Where did they come from? Check the tin again. “Made in The UK” This is bullshit. The insanity deepens. The dissonance between what I’ve seen before my eyes, what I’m told and what I eat is just so vast.
Someone once told me about the cognitive disparity of an ant climbing on the circuit board of a computer. A computer which is connected into a web so unfathomably vast that even its human creators cannot fully grasp its scale. Within that web, within just a minute fragment, exists not only a wealth of knowledge of the ant, its history, its cousins, its biology, but the entire genome of the ant itself. All of this is easily accessible at my fingertips at this very moment. For the ant however, if we are being uncharitable, we must assume that this is just another hard surface of some kind to be traversed, that there is surely no means by which the ant can conceive of what it is interacting with and if it could only catch a glimpse of this network, if only for a moment, it would surely drive the ant to insanity. As I hold the tin of Heinz Baked Beans in my hand, I am the ant on the circuit board, catching a fleeting glimpse of the web, driving me to insanity.
The Forest
The first few years I pried at the forest. Sometimes skating around the edges, popping in here and there, looking for the deep hidden paths of the foragers. Sometimes they become apparent and I make my way in and under the foliage. I’m not sure exactly what I’m looking for, sometimes I’m not sure exactly what I’m looking at, but that will, in time, become apparent.
I trek up the steep gradients, through patches of thick bamboo or over rocky outcrops. I become familiar with their shapes, textures and atmosphere. The forest is alive, it has moods signalled by its inhabitants, the birds, the crickets, the termites who audible shuddering as I walk past warns me of where to place my footing. I learn simple tricks through trial and error. Checking the ground before standing still to avoid assault from the bullet ant nests. I learn where the spider webs will likely cross my path, training my eyes to focus in such a way where they come into frame before they come in my face. I learn to be guarded. To stand completely still when a skuttleling sounds off nearby foot, be it a snake or perhaps worse a takab. With its thick walls, the forest can feel dangerous, unrelenting, uncaring, unwelcoming. This is only in the beginning stages of the relationship however.
I must have passed the hidden Lisu cemetery over a dozen times before I actually found it. Up past the buffalo pasture, take the dirt road on your left. At the end you’ll find the beginnings of a forager path which stretches on for more kilometres than I’m capable of walking. Instead of taking the path, make a right along the dirt track. Pay close attention to your surroundings, the pasture to your right, the forest wall to your left. Walk slowly.
I catch a glimpse of bright red through the tree wall. I notice a subtle opening, barely visible amongst the thicket. Clambering through wet leaves and twigs brush my face for a few metres before breaking through into something of a clearing allowing light to break through the foliage. The space is around 120 sqm, young trees bend and wrap around one another.
There are four arched tombs with red brick facades. In the centre of the bricks sits a sheltered inlet filled with offerings: Fanta bottles, incense sticks, beer bottles, red bull cans, all gathering dust. Behind the facade the earth has been moulded into an oval shape, around 2 metres long, 1 metre deep. Young grass grows atop the newer tombs, while darker more developed shrubs and vines are beginning to envelop the older.
Old pieces of fabric are wrapped around the bending trees, it was the red one that caught my eye. On one tree a wicker backpack is hanging from a branch filled with old pots and pans. The ground is littered with bits and bobs. Empty glass bottles, old tools, empty bags and discarded red bricks. Everything has clearly been here for a long time, other than the bright orange Fanta bottle at one of the newer tombs. On the concrete slab at the back of an inlet are written family names and dates, births and deaths.
It sounds like an eerie, even spooky place, but it doesn’t feel like one. It’s calm, serene, tranquil. The warehouses of London are eerie, the tin of beans in my hand was eerie. Here though, I’ve nothing to fear among the resting places of those balaclava-clad men and women with thick skin and weathered faces. When I first started roaming the forests I wasn’t sure what secrets I was looking for, the tombs are without a doubt one of them but there are so many more.
The forest’s thick walls are not like the ramparts of a castle but rather a permeable membrane. In just one sense protecting the interior from the exterior, but in another allowing passage through to its safe harbour, one guarded by the spirit of Amphoe Moohee fed in turn by the Lisu village doctor. The forest is alive, thriving, wealthy and free.
Outside of the forest walls the water in the dams, the irrigation canals and the paddy fields have been captured by capital, absorbed into latifundia. The cabbages, corn, pineapples, oranges, potatoes. The farmers, the millers, the foragers, the drivers, the pesticide shotters, the village doctors, the food co-op workers and other petite business peoples. The stream that feeds them however, the one that winds through the forest, does so with its own autonomy, it is free. I am rocked by the slow ebb of the water. I am not alienated but integrated, if just for a moment.
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