Why Farming?

Some of you might wonder why we even decided to start Danés Boricua Farms.

Part of it goes all the way back to when I was a child, where I spent many summers on my mother's siblings' farms and saw how it all worked. There was something amazing about that for me; growing your own food, watching it from start to finish, selling it, distributing it. It was all so fascinating to me. This combined with both my own and Danny's desire to reintroduce the "art" and necessity of farming, of the variety you can find in a tropical climate, and to help the community know more about not just growing food themselves, but what the various fruits and vegetables are, all lead to this farm. Then we have piled even more on that, with my passion for composting, and our shared love of animals and rescuing the unfortunate ones. This is also a part of our farm. And lastly, I have a strange desire to just simply find every exotic, tropical fruit I possibly can. So many I've only learned about over the past few years - and the more I find, the more I also find that I still haven't heard about. It is truly remarkable, just how many tropical fruits exist, and how they can pretty much all grow here. And I need to try to grow, and hopefully taste, every one of them.

One of the main things I noticed here in Puerto Rico, shortly after I moved here, was how - despite the fact that there are many many fruit sellers lining the roads all over the island - they all had the same handful of fruits, no matter the season or time of year. I want to say, maybe 7-8 types of vegetables and 10 or so types of fruit. And almost always the same things. Now it may be that our plan here isn't going to be something Puerto Ricans are that interested in. After all, maybe they like their handful of fruits. But when you can do so much more, then why not?

We firmly believe, that as soon as we make many more fruits available to the people of the island, they will slowly discover what they have been "missing out on" and it will reignite a desire to know more about those fruits, what they taste like, and maybe even how you grow them yourself. In my research, I've also discovered that many of the fruits grown here, have either potential or possible spectacular effects on our health, or they have actually been proven to have certain benefits and healing properties etc. Many of these fruits have also been grown in other parts of the world for thousands of years, and have been used for all kinds of medicinal purposes. And whether those claims are real or not, it's still always fascinating to find out the many uses even one plant can have; from eating the fruit to grinding the seeds of that same fruit for some treatment of sorts, to tea of the leaves, giving you energy or healing something, and to the boiling and eating of the roots even. This is also where Danny's primary profession as a doctor and a researcher comes into play. He has already done research on the cancer-healing benefits of many tropical fruits, and with our farm we can also combine all the other wonderful things above with actual medical research on the various claims of these plants and their healing benefits. Another thing I have come to realize, as I read about these fruits, is just how many of them have "possible" benefits of all kinds attached to them - but I almost always run into some kind of "but more research is needed" message attached. Apparently, not much research is even being done with many of these things, and that's a shame. In the photo you see the NONI. A peculiar looking fruit that, when ripe, smells and tastes fairly awful, but it has become a very popular supplement in juice and powder form for all kinds of health benefits. "But more research is needed", so hopefully we will soon be part of that research into what these things can do.