As we all are very well aware, the world seems to be being tossed upside down. The macroeconomic effects of wars, terrorism attacks, supply line disruptions and other upheavals are stressful enough. Now add to that the ongoing battle with Mother Nature and the weather. And now we seem to be developing the “perfect storm” with floods, droughts, massive forest fires,… etc etc.
Given all of that, I want to make the point in this short note that the key to success in agriculture is to have very competent active management in place every day. At AgroNosotros, we are very blessed to have a strong and loyal Team of farmers led by Andres Lopez, our General Manager.
Andres and his Team of 50 plus farmers have been in place since 2015 when we acquired our first Coffee farm in Panama. His Team works daily to outwit Mother Nature, who has recently really become a handful. She has thrown everything at us that we could imagine over the last few years requiring a very capable and experienced farming operations Team to be constantly on the job.
The weather has been so variable that our traditional crop expectations are all out the window. The standard two year coffee cycle (one year with crops up and the next year with crops down) is no longer the norm. The coffee trees are taking one to two years longer to develop making it harder to predict harvests.
Add all of the above with Coffee to what's going on with Cacao internationally and we have a whole new set of headaches to manage. Clearly if commercial Cacao remains anywhere near $10,000 a metric tonne, we may reap windfall profits a few years down the road. But getting us down that road in the chocolate making business at those much higher prices for Cacao is going to make that road very bumpy.
As an example of the need for competent farm management to be in-place everyday, we can tell you a little bit about a very urgent project caused by highly unusual drought conditions in the Bocas del Toro area of Panama where our Cacao Caribe and Cacao Rambala farms are located.
The Bocas del Toro region is usually very wet eleven out of twelve months a year, ideal for Cacao. BUT, thanks to Mega El Nino and Mother Nature we have had very little, if any rain lately.
As you can see in the pictures, our farming Team mobilized emergency water for our trees in a matter of one day after we fully realized Mother Nature was at it again with no rain.
Our heavy duty 2.5 ton truck from Boquete is pictured loaded up with 1000 liter tanks. The local farm supply stores provided tubing, water pumps and generators to round out the kit necessary to water our 75,000 sapling nursery that was very thirsty.
So in one day, the drought conditions were mitigated by our farming Team utilizing the nearby river where we have located our Cacao farms, “ just in case”. Never hurts to plan ahead.
In summary, my point here is that when investing in agriculture a competent and qualified management and farm operations Team is mandatory as a requirement for a successful agricultural investment.
Please be sure when you are doing your due diligence in any of the alternative investments being offered to you, whether that be precious metals, fine art or agricultural land growing various crops, that you ensure competent management and a daily operations Team is already in place (not just promised).
Here at AgroNosotros, we have just such a farming operations Team and have had this Team in-place for the last 9 years.
Our hats are off to Andres Lopez and his 50 plus farmers!
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