My name's Lucía Cuenca. I've been working on the land since I was fifteen years old, so I gained my knowledge of agriculture at a tender age. I started by picking vegetables, tangerines, oranges, lemons, leeks, parsley, and other crops for various companies in the area. This is a hard and demanding job that I always dreamed about doing for myself. My family didn't have their own fields: my father Miguel was a coal miner, and he went back to his parents' house when he fell ill as a result of his job. I wasn't able to own my own land until my husband and I decided to live a quieter life in the country. That was when we bought our plot in Fuente la Gota to grow mangos and other organic crops in a traditional way and without pesticides. My husband used to work in the metallurgical industry in Catalonia, so he didn't know much about farming. However, he has always been concerned about the consequences of conventional agriculture on nature, and how to help bring about change. Buying the farm made his dream come true of growing our own produce without using any type of pesticide. At the same time, he set the goal of recovering birdlife in the area. He achieved this thanks to several initiatives, such as keeping grass under the trees for a specific time of the year, placing water troughs around the farm during the hottest months, avoiding the application of phytosanitary products that could alter the behaviour of birds, and respecting the nests that they were building in our trees. Little by little, with lots of hard work every day, birdlife came back to the farm. As it's a small farm, my husband and I take care of all the jobs. For example, when José Luis, my husband, is clearing and pruning the trees in the traditional way (with secateurs and by hand), I'll be picking up the branches and leaves to make it easier for him to continue. We're a modest project but we have the same enthusiasm and desire as others. We get motivated by seeing how the trees grow and produce more fruit, meaning that we can provide a high-quality product directly to the end consumer. That's why CrowdFarming is our only reference for selling our mangos.

Fuente la Gota is a quintessential family-run farm. My husband and I work on it to fulfil the dream of making a living from agriculture. We're located one kilometre outside the village of Benamargosa, in the Axarquía region (Málaga). This area is known as the 'tropical shore', as it's one of the first areas where tropical fruits were grown in the EU. Our farm sits at an altitude of two hundred metres above sea level, so we have stunning views of the riverbank, which is awash with the green of avocado, lemon, mango and vine orchards, as well as a panoramic view of the surrounding white villages and the Mediterranean Sea in the background. The farm is approximately thirty years old, and the name Fuente la Gota comes from a well ("fuente" in Spanish) that used to be found here. Its water supplied local residents, both for the upkeep of their country houses and for the irrigation of the lemon trees on their farms. At Fuente la Gota, in addition to mangos we have other trees such as avocado, orange, lemon, fig, almond, and even a couple of hundred-year-old carob trees. And best of all, we're home to a great variety of birds, including goldfinches and greenfinches. Thanks to our organic and sustainable practices, lots of animals have settled on and near the farm, such as reptiles like the chameleon (*Chamaeleo chamaeleon*). The farm is divided in two by a stream that normally runs dry and which provides a natural corridor that gives shelter to numerous beneficial insects for our crops. The water on our farm comes from our well and we built a separate tank to store it. We also installed the entire drip irrigation system ourselves, which provides water for our trees and saves us a lot of money. For the energy supply of the farm, we only use companies that supply energy from renewable sources. Since 2013, we've been working with an organic farming certificate. We knew we wanted this from the outset, even though we were aware that it would involve a lot more effort. The farm needs more hours spent on weed clearing, preventive treatments, manure application, pruning, etc. What motivated us the most was the idea of providing quality, environmentally friendly fruit free of pesticides and chemical fertilisers, thereby encouraging fauna and flora on the farm. We only use organic products to fertilise our trees and we contribute organic matter to improve the soil structure through pruning the trees and cutting the grass, meaning that we don't generate any waste. We take advantage of everything at Fuente la Gota, which is why we use small or damaged fruit to make dehydrated fruit and sell the rest on to make jam. In general, mango cultivation generates most of the employment and economy in the area.