I am Diego Águila, farmer by passion and family tradition. The Águila family has been dedicated to the cultivation of table grapes for generations. As early as 1890, my great-great-grandfather Matias was in charge of tilling the land in this area and growing table grapes, which were then exported by train to Russia and by ship to Cuba. At that time the grapes he cultivated were of the Ohanes variety, which comes from the village of Almeria that gives it its name and which has very good features for transport. From that time until now, my family has been changing farms, varieties, agricultural techniques, but not cultivation. My father made the change from conventional to organic farming in 2007. It has always been the members of my family who have been involved in the agricultural work on the farm. Among these tasks, when the farm was conventional, were the application of phytosanitary products that were harmful to the environment. This was one of the motivations that led him to change: he wanted to avoid continuing to damage the health of our environment and our own health. When we grew our table grapes conventionally, the market demanded extremely high quality standards and excessively perfect products, which only resulted in a huge waste of tasty, fresh fruit that was just as good. All this, together with the firm belief that organic farming brought added value to our fruit, led us to embark on this project. Because of the difficulties that this change entailed, especially in terms of pest management and productivity without the use of fertilisers, the technician who was helping us decided to stop accompanying us in the project. I had always been very close to agriculture and decided to study Agricultural Engineering to gain a deeper understanding of crops, to improve the techniques we were using on our farm, and to learn more about other types of agriculture. Therefore, I started to help my father and apply all the knowledge I had previously acquired so that together we could produce an organically grown table grape. Since then, my day-to-day life has been non-stop! I take care of all possible tasks on the farm: I visit the fields and check for pests and to see how our grapes are doing, I work the fields and apply organic treatments, I do office work, and I attend fairs such as Fruit Attraction or organic farming exhibitions to promote our product. In addition, in order to take care of everything and get to those tasks of which I cannot dedicate as much time as I would like, I have the help of my brother, who is in charge of checking the harvest, labelling and shipments.

I am delighted to welcome you to our farm, Cañada de Ana. It is a piece of land that my grandfather bought and developed in 1969 with the aim of continuing the tradition of my family, the Águila family, of cultivating grapes. This is a tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation since it began in 1890 with my great-great-grandfather, until it came to me. Our farm takes the name of "Cañada de Ana" because in 1911 a woman called Doña Ana lived in the area, specifically in an old farmhouse called Casa de la Paloma. It is 30 hectares of land located in Murcia in the Guadalentín valley a few kilometres from the foothills of the Sierra Espuña. It is an area of great ecotourism interest as it is a Regional Park with a great diversity of limestone landscapes and karst formations. In addition, in this same area, there are remains of Iberian settlements. Over the years, vines of all kinds of varieties have been planted on these lands. In fact, when my great-great-grandfather started what is now the family business, he planted vines of the Ohanes variety, also known as Almeria grape or ship's grape, due to the large amount of exports that were made with this means of transport. Over time, this grape variety went into decline and the Águila family had to adapt to the demand for other types of grapes and needs. This is why we currently grow Itumfour, Itumnine, Itumfifteen and autumn royal table grapes in Cañada de Ana, varieties that adapt very well to our land, withstand organic cultivation very well and produce a very good quality seedless table grape. It has been 15 years since my father decided to change the way of growing grapes on our farm. After several years of conventional grape cultivation, he realised that the practices being used were having a negative effect on the crop and the environment in general. We needed to work in a way that was kinder and more respectful to the land than we had been doing previously. In addition, we needed to set ourselves apart from other grape producers. Therefore, despite the fact that it is more complicated to manage the crops using organic farming techniques, and more complicated to reach large volumes of production, we decided to be more respectful of the environment when it came to growing grapes on our farm and get the organic farming certification. We do not only have grapes on our farm. We also have fruit trees such as plum and pear, olive, walnut, and palm trees and peppers with which we produce paprika. Throughout the farm we let grass and adventitious flowers grow during the spring to serve as a refuge for insects that are natural enemies of pests. When summer arrives, this grass loses its flowers and the pests are no longer in the crop, so we cut it and incorporate them into the soil to provide organic matter. The borders, or separation areas between the plots, are left completely uncultivated to increase the biodiversity of our farm. The climate on the farm is Mediterranean, influenced by the fact that it is 25 km from the Mediterranean coast, and at the foot of the Sierra Espuña Natural Park. All this allows us to have a special microclimate, ideal for the production of quality table grapes. In order to preserve the natural environment, we have humidity sensors, which allows us to optimise water consumption, a precious resource. Our crop needs approximately 4,500m³ of water per hectare. We provide this water by means of a drip irrigation system driven by solar panels, avoiding the use of well water, which we replace with water from the Torrevieja desalination plant. Furthermore, in the event of a defect, there is a reservoir in Sierra Espuña from which the irrigation community supplies us with water under gravity pressure, so there is no need to use energy. We also recover the rainwater that falls on the roofs of our warehouses. Although the agricultural part is our livelihood, it is not the only important part of our project. We try to give extra value to what we do and we are committed to sustainability. Therefore, in addition to our efforts to have quality production aligned with practices that respect the environment and improve biodiversity, we take social and energy saving measures. On this last point, in addition to drip irrigation powered by renewable energies, since 2018 our entire office has been powered by solar panels. In the area where we are located, Alhama de Murcia, a large part of the population is dedicated to agriculture. In our farm we try to generate permanent jobs that contribute to keeping people in our town. Specifically, 3 men and 2 women work on the farm on a permanent basis to prepare the crop, and when we are in season there are up to 40 employees in total. In addition, we try to use local inputs as much as possible, promoting and relying on local companies and those from our region.