Biodiversity surrounds me here in Puerto Rico. It starts with the famous coqui frog that has become a symbol of our island. We’re also home to parrots and hundreds of other species of birds. The rich waters of the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean are full of fish and corals and more.
No wonder the U.S. Department of Agriculture has called Puerto Rico’s unique blend of ecosystems and habitats “a biodiversity hotspot.” It’s a hotspot here on my farm, too—and biodiversity is at the heart of what we do at Frutos del Guacabo, allowing us to be productive, sustainable and profitable.
Our biodiversity is most obvious with what we grow: a wide range of veggies, leaves, herbs and roots based on what chefs want for their restaurant recipes, responding to global culinary trends. We supply the island’s gastronomic market with everything from lettuce and arugula to peppers, carrots and mangoes.
Our farm has so much variety, it could be showcased as a crop-based botanical garden. In fact, we often welcome visitors to Frutos del Guacabo, showing them how food moves from farm to table. This is one of our farm’s core missions: education. As much as we seek to feed our island, we also aim to use agro-tourism to teach our guests about local farming, food production and sustainability.
One of my favourite activities is to collaborate on the farm with the chefs, waiters and diners who will prepare and consume the food that we produce. They exchange their knowledge and experiences in a way that allows Puerto Rico’s gastronomy to grow.
I like to think of Frutos del Guacabo as an agro-culinary canvas that allows us to join this effort as we produce the food that we know chefs want as well as try out new plants in an experimental way. Can we grow them under our conditions? We run these types of trials all the time, based on the interests and ideas of our customers.
We also enjoy working with students, who are the future of farming and everything else. We need them to see agriculture as a potential career choice.
There’s nothing like seeing our farm in person—and then to dig a little deeper into the subject of biodiversity. As we walk around our fields and describe what we grow, we also show how we enrich the soil with compost from small ruminants, repaying the soil for the nutrients that we obtain from our harvests.
Everything starts with the soil, of course. We strive to keep it healthy—and that means preserving the invisible biodiversity of microbes that help feed our plants. I like to say that we farm with our ear to the ground, so that we can learn what’s going on in our soil and adapt to the changes and challenges that always present themselves.
We aren’t limited to the soil, either. We also use hydroponics, a technology that enables us to grow plants without soil, replacing the dirt with water-based nutrient solutions. This contributes to sustainability, helping us do more with less. It also encourages farming outside of its traditional rural setting and in the urban areas whose populations are always increasing.
We use biodiversity for pollination and protection, too. We grow flowers to encourage insect pollinators to visit our farm and perform their vital work among our plants. And several of our herbs, such as lemongrass, tarragon, and basil are destined not only to become ingredients in meals but also to play a part in our natural pest-control strategies.
It’s like our little farm is its own ecosystem, and every plant has a purpose. Most people don’t think about any of this. To them, food is what you shop for in supermarkets. They have little idea about the farms where it originate or the innovations that farmers need.
Yet no matter who you are or what you do for a living, you depend on farmers three times a day—farmers like me depend on biodiversity.