Dear CrowdFarmer, My name's Félix Arias, and I'm one of the founding members of a small cooperative of Farmers that grow organic pistachios. Ecopistacho is a cooperative of twenty-two members that was created in 2010 to market the pistachio production from an association of producers known as ADIFAE, which used to meet up to share their experiences of growing this tree. Thanks to this partnership, we share our knowledge with new Farmers who want to learn about the organic cultivation of pistachios. If at the end of the training they fit in with our philosophy, we invite them to join Ecopistacho and we share all our knowledge and facilities with them. As I was saying, I was one of the founders of the cooperative, and I was actually the chairman until 2022. But the fact that I'm no longer chairman doesn't mean that I've parted company with the cooperative. Quite the contrary, as we're actually the partners who are taking Ecopistacho's work forward. Currently, we only have the help of Laura, who is in charge of admin issues, and Francisco, who usually works at the 'headquarters' helping us out with whatever we need. At Ecopistacho every Farmer runs their own farm. Some partners have been working the land all their lives, while others like me decided to return to the countryside after working in other professions. In my case, I spent much of my life in Madrid working in the communications industry until the company where I was working ceased trading. I knew instantly that it was time to go back to my roots in Alcázar de San Juan and work as a Farmer, as my grandparents used to. I've always liked the countryside and being creative and innovative, so I was one of the first Farmers in Spain to plant pistachio trees. Some people thought I was crazy, but over time more and more Farmers have decided to grow this crop. I now believe that direct sales to the end consumer is the present and future of Farmers, so we've adopted this approach at Ecopistacho.

Our cooperative is called Ecopistacho, as we only work with eco-friendly products and pistachios are our main product. That said, some members grow almonds, vines and other products. At Ecopistacho we're all united by respect for the land and agricultural principles based on respect for the environment. To give you some details about how we work the land, we thought we'd talk about one of our favourite farms, Las Majaneras. In the past, the Farmers here used to set aside the stones or mounds of soil that hindered their work, forming large mountains that are known as 'majaneras' in Spanish, hence the name of the farm. Most of the farms are in Alcázar de San Juan (Castilla-La Mancha), as are our pistachio drying facilities. Farming is one of the main driving forces of the economy around here, so the operation of our cooperative provides employment and contributes to the area's economic health. Our farms are surrounded by typical Mediterranean vegetation, such as thyme, rosemary, scorpion broom and holm oak, which are home to lots of living beings. There are also other crops such as vines, olive groves and saffron around here. We have some honey beehives that help maintain our varied wild ecosystems, the existence of this wonderful insect and the pollination of crops such as almond trees. Our trees are watered by the rain, but rainfall is sometimes so low that we have water our trees. Las Majaneras has an underground drip irrigation system (which minimises water evaporation) for when our trees need extra water. Our area sits on one of the richest underground aquifers in Spain, so we have water from our own well that we pump out with solar energy. Our cultivation and production processes don't generate any waste products. For example, pruning remains are shredded and added into the soil, the outer skin of the pistachio is used to make compost, and we used any closed pistachios to make pistachio paste.