Economy
For a long time, the life of Mennonites in the Chaco was marked by extreme deprivation as a result of the new arrivals' complete lack of agricultural experience under tropical conditions. The relationship between the climate and the earth, especially the dryness of the winter months, turned out to be more extreme than the writing of the Paraguayan promoters had led them to believe. These circumstances were made even more difficult by voluntarily doing without modern agricultural equipment. Marketing products was extremely challenging because of the isolated location of the colony and as a result, most economic activity was related to subsistence farming.
An economic upswing in the central Chaco began in the 1980s when the agricultural co-operative, with the help of World Bank credits, invested in dairy production. The introduction of the drought- and heat-resistant buffalo grass from North America in 1955, which created the foundation of an extensive cattle industry, and the construction of the Trans-Chaco Highway to Asunción in 1965 were significant predecessors to economic growth. An important factor in the economic improvement was the reform of the school system and a general liberalisation.
Read more about this topic: Menno Colony
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical terms.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Anthony, Sir Eden (1897–1977)