For of all gainful professions, nothing is better, nothing more pleasing, nothing more delightful, nothing better becomes a well-bred man than agriculture.” Marco Tulio Cicero (106 – 43 B.C.)

By the end of 2010, we decided to rebuild with our grandfather’s heritage, an abandoned orange farm in Valencia. At that point, many of its trees were dead or in a very bad condition. Furthermore, the agricultural sector of Spain had to face a lot of problems and challenges. Today, after years full of work, dreams and optimism Naranjas del Carmen is almost working to its full capacity. Thanks to Crowdfarming® we have already planted 1,300 trees for our customers and friends. All of these young orange trees have a proud owner who can enter his garden to chose a name for it, watch it grow and order its fruits to be sent directly to his doorstep all over Europe. Moreover, many of them have already come to Valencia to visit their tree or to plant it on their own.

How it all began …

Taking over a plantation with old and ill trees, preparing the fields and planting new trees has led us through a time of intensive ups and downs. When we started to take care of our grandfather’s abandoned plantation, more than a half of the trees were dead or sick so that they almost did not produce any fruits. At that point, the cultivation was still conventional and the products were sold via cooperations and intermediates. It was very hard for us to see that the economical situation of the finca was increasingly becoming worse. With only marginal funds and little work experience (Gonzalo was 24 and Gabriel 27 years old), but with even more optimism we started working on turning our idea of an agricultural revolution into reality. As we wanted to preserve our grandfather’s heritage we began to approach the project from two sides: On the one hand, there was the slow but complete rebuilding of the fields. On the other hand, we created a new distribution channel which enabled us to establish a direct connection to the consumers. In the end, we started our adventure by publishing our first version of the website www.naranjasdelcarmen.com in the year 2011.