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Voici une magnifique proposition de Benjamin Hargreaves (cf notre brève : Benja, « the » gentleman producteur de fruits exotiques bio) qui peut changer votre vie- n’hésitez pas à le contacter par mail!

If you like climbing tropical fruit trees…

Long term opportunity to be an organic tropical fruit farmer in Maro, Andalucia.

We are an English/Spanish family who after 10 years working here would like to find time to do other things in life, so we are looking for a like-minded individual, couple or family to take on all the responsibility and workload of chirimoya production. This person would also be responsible for sales and would earn 100% of the income.

Current anual income from about half of the chirimoya is about 6000€, the other half unnecessarily goes to waste. This isn’t a large income, but then the cost of living is incredibly low compared to the rest of Europe and being semi self sufficient in food and energy we have few costs.

Accommodation is a 14m2 wooden cabin that we recently built, along with a kitchen and hot shower alongside. We would continue to live in a separate cabin part time and for part of the year.

Since we started here we have massively improved the soils, creating more diversity and correspondingly increased fruit production. We have created a lovely place to live along with vegetable, herb and flower gardens, a wide range of tropical fruits, chickens, solar electricity, and all this literally a stone’s throw of the Mediterranean. The land is nearly 2 HA and there are approximately 70 chirimoya trees producing at least 6 tonnes of fruit.

The right person needs to:

-like and be capable of safely climbing trees, for pruning and for harvesting.
– be committed to organic farming principles and passionate about sustainable agriculture and have demonstrateablle practical experience.
– be willing to be self employed as a registered farmer with the tax authorities, in Spain there is no alternative way to sell this quantity of fruit
– speak Spanish sufficiently
– be easy going and able to sometimes work and live alongside us
– be sufficiently healthy and strong as the work requires this
– be capable of marketing and selling the fruits
– be technically capable of maintaining complex irrigation systems.
– be able to tolerate mosquitos, tourists and heat in summer
– be available long term, the opportunity could be permanent
– be committed to living here at least for the harvest and pruning season and over summer when irrigation is essential. The only time of year with less work is during April and May.
-accept that the authorities won’t accept non agricultural activities on the land, as the area is is obviously zoned as agricultural.

A part of the land is unused, so there is ample opportunity to bring more land into production and increase diversity to make this an even more wonderful and beautiful paradise to live and work in

We intend to continue to live here for some of the year, and to continue to use part of the land for our own needs and to generate a small income from non chirimoya fruit sales, however the majority of trees are chirimoyas, and it is the workload in the production and sale of chirimoya fruit that we are seeking to let go of.

Genuinely interested people should email us describing yourselves, your motivation and your experience.

We look forward to hearing from you

Ben and Ela
benjahargreaves@gmail.com