From conventional to organic
Many Nature & More growers used to work according to conventional practices but due to a wide range of reasons decided to take the plunge into the world of soil fertility and creative compost. What exactly motivated them and what challenges have they faced?
Organic Kiwis grown here !
José Hidalgo, one of the forefathers of organic fruit production in Chile, started by studying as much as possible about organic farming. “There was not much available then”. It took a visit to Switzerland, where he noticed truly delicious and fantastic looking corn (grown by a friend of his). It turned out that his friend was using a fertilizer with a much higher percentage of organic matter than that José was using in Chile. “Of course I knew about organic matter from my studies but had not been convinced of its importance in terms of fertilization. Seeing my friend's corn changed that”. When he got home he immediately started experimenting on the farm. One of these tests showed drastic differences in corn grown with conventional fertilizer compared with that which was grown with ‘crude’ compost. When the corn with the compost application turned out a lot better, he knew that organic farming was the way forward!
