About Our Exotic Fruit Farm in Puerto Rico

In 1994, I originally intended to start a coffee farm at a much higher altitude than our current exotic fruit farm location. Once I started researching shade versus sun grown coffee, I wondered if I could select fruit trees to provide the shade and get this added benefit of a secondary crop. The year was 1993 to 1994 and there was not much internet so I got in a car and drove to a university library- very old school. I found an article about underutilized fruit from Southeast Asia that would grow in the US and after further research, I put coffee on the back burner and focused on mangosteen and other exotics. I purchased land at a much lower altitude in 1994 and began this long journey.

Mangosteen is a very slow grower, needs 5 to 6 years to first flower and then up to 10 to 12 years to really increase production to commercial levels. So I looked for quicker tree fruit crops and settled on rambutan. In the 90’s, these were only available in Hawaii and this was also when I got my first durian trees. Hurricane Georges took off with 6 of the first 9 trees; I have since planted hundreds more. And then other rare trees followed along with a devastating fire, theft, vandalism, an earthquake and then the biggest hit of all, Hurricane Maria. Of the  four thousand trees in production by 2017, I lost 2000 in about 48 hours. Farming in hurricane alleys is not for the timid.

2017 was followed by trying to raise funds to keep going. I stopped that and now get by with the increase in production from the older surviving trees and the first fruits from the more recent plantings. This continues to this day. Inflation has taken a toll, labor is always hard to find for this difficult work and input prices have soared. I will keep doing this until its time for the next owner but, not yet. Trees producing for the first time planted in the last several years are beginning to ramp up and future revenue will benefit.