Brígida

Naturalcrop

Olá, I am Brígida and the founder of Naturalcrop. Together with my family and my fantastic team we grow delicious organic butternut squash for Nature & More in the heart of Portugal. Hereby we would like to tell you some more about us and our organic products. We are an organic family farm and started this journey out of our desire to contribute to a healthy and sustainable environment.

We set ourselves the goal of improving the quality of our food and supporting the people in rural nearby areas. Our farm is located near the Aire and Candeeiros Mountains Natural Park, allowing us to benefit from a very specific micro climate with both Atlantic and Mediterranean characteristics. This provides warmth to our plants when they need it and gives them a special, delicious flavour. We are surrounded by forests and are lucky to be in an area protected by law, due to its biodiversity. Since 2012, the very beginning of our butternut squash journey, we have only used organic and biodynamic practices. We believe that when we take care of nature, she gives back and takes care of us. The rich and dark soil of our land is the soul of our farm. It provides a naturally disease free environment, which allows us to avoid the use of pesticides and fertilizers used by conventional farmers. The soil supplies our organic butternut pumpkins with nutrients, making them tasty, very colourful and long-lasting.

Nature´s soil and our labour have allowed us to make our customers happy and keeps them returning for more, year after year. Our colleagues and employees enjoy their work and can actively contribute to a healthier natural habitat. For the future we plan to deepen our biodynamic practices and experiment further with different techniques that could benefit our plants and the people eating our colourful pumpkins.

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soil

To ensure the continuous health of our rich soil we rotate our crops. When we are not growing butternut squash we grow pointed cabbages and broccoli, as well as leguminous plants. We also use compost and apply a variety of biodynamic practices. We are lucky to be situated in an area that benefits from the Atlantic and Mediterranean climate, which creates the ideal climate for our pumpkins and contributes to the rich soil.

We are proud to say, that our farm was a pioneer in our region in regards to waste recycling and reduced plastic consumption. Through the usage of biodegradable and environmentally friendly materials, we have managed to achieve barely residual levels. While this is much more expensive than the conventional farming practices, it has allowed us to create a natural balance and healthy soil that we believe we will benefit from for a long time to come.

biodiversity

Our farm enjoys a vast diversity of flora. There are natural pine trees, cork oak trees, herb bushes, flowers and many other species growing around our pumpkins. This vegetation attracts many birds and insects, as well as rabbits, hares and wild boars. We do not have to worry about these animals disturbing our crops, as nature regulates itself by the presence of predators such as snakes. Furthermore, we have several insect hotels on our farm to increase biodiversity and the natural balance.

In recent years we have installed and maintained various bee hives, to contribute in the fight against the global decrease of the bee population and the damaging effects of the Asian wasp in Europe.

individual

The practice of biodynamic farming fosters the development of our employees and allows them to widen their field of knowledge and expertise. The high standards of our farm and the knowledge that we directly contribute to a better future for our children and society in general contributes to our employees well-being and sense of pride in their work. We strongly believe that respect for all is important and foster this. Furthermore, a rule on our farm is that individual differences are a good thing and complement each other, ultimately making us stronger in a team, with ages ranging from 18 to 60.

While new team members receive training when they first join us, they never stop learning, as we regularly ensure that their training is updated. Since 2018 we have adopted the international Global Gap and GRASP Standards which are based on the core principles of: food safety, environmental protection, health and safety at work, worker welfare, towards a more sustainable world.

society

Through the establishment of our farm in a rural area we were able to have a considerable impact on the rural economy and employment rate, while avoiding migration. This allowed many of our workers to be able to stay close to their families and home, while being able to make a good living. All employees have written contracts, in which their rights are explicitly discussed and their rights are fully preserved. Labour management is done in order to avoid extra working hours and to ensure that everyone gets appropriate resting time. We are proud to say that we are performing better than our competitors in this regard. Seasonal workers on our farm share the equipment’s available for the employees as equals and frequently friendly relationships and after-work gatherings take place. Their races or genders have never played a role in this regard, as we all work for nature and share that passion.

economy

Portugal, as many other countries, was strongly impacted by the economic crisis in other economic sectors, which led to high unemployment in our rural area. Our farm has since 2012 served as a source of stable employment to many inhabitants of our rural area. We ensure that our employees are paid above the usual agricultural remuneration levels and enforce equal pay amongst women and men. We cover the full cost of external training of our employees, which is not considered a common practice in our region. Due to these factors and our passion for our work the atmosphere and working climate is very harmonious and has created a strong bond between employees and co-workers and a great respect for nature and all it supplies us with.

Our supplies are primarily purchased from local businesses, in order to support our local economy and communities. Through our work and experience we are lucky to have acquired plenty of knowledge we now proudly share with other growers, agricultural schools and associations, by providing facilities for agricultural meetings and open door sessions for novel farmers.

climate

To assure our contribution to carbon retention we continuously and consistently make use of biodynamic practices, green manure and composting. Due to the extensive amount of sun hours every day and mild climate our greenhouses do not require any heating and our electricity consumption is managed so that it becomes active during the night, when the wind farms in Portugal supply the power grid. The quality of our soil and the planning of planting dates in line with lunar cycles allow us to avoid a substantial amount of tractor work, which is frequently done on conventional farms. This allows us to save time and fossil fuels alike.

water

Water is a scarce resource in our region and thus we have had to make substantial investments in independent sourcing of water, draining, drip irrigation and advanced technology irrigations systems that maximize water efficiency through careful analysis of watering times. Now, after several years of biodynamic practices, we can say that they were a key factor in reducing the watering needs of our land. When we take care of nature, she gives back and takes care of us!

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