Development of Finca La Amistad


The beginning

The Finca La Amistad project started in 1997. "La Amistad" means "friendship" and expresses what we feel for the country Costa Rica, its people and its natural landscape.
When we bought the farm, the land was barely fertile after many years of livestock farming. From the beginning, the objective was to sustainably farm Finca La Amistad. As the only thing that would allow the land to recover from the intensive past use was gentle cultivation over a long period, the choice fell on a reforestation project with precious indigenous trees and the planting of macadamia trees.

2003: diversification

In 2003, we decided to diversify our farming operation and include indigenous plants: passion fruit, vanilla, oranges, plantains and cacao. Problems soon occurred with the plants that have a short harvest cycle. When these plants are attacked by insects, immediate treatment with chemical agents is required. As this is contrary to our cultivation philosophy, we turned our focus to growing cacao. We also continued our vanilla and reforestation projects with great commitment.

Today: focused planting and biodiversity

After six years, it became clear that the climate in the Finca region is too wet for macadamias. We therefore decided to replace the macadamia trees with cacao plants and expanded our cacao plantation in phases from 15 to 50 hectares. Today, cacao is our main product in addition to our indigenous hardwoods. In the near future we might be able to add vanilla to this list as we recently picked the first pod.