From Seed to Seedling, From Farmers to Harvest, From Us to You!
Historically, smallholder pepper farmers face many challenges. One of them is access to quality pepper varieties that are both productive and more resistant to pests and bad weather. As a response, in 2019 we launched an innovative Seed Lab in Ecuador. Our team of agronomists select the most resilient pepper plants and carefully remove all the seeds for distribution to farmers. Our goal is to provide farmers with seeds and seedlings that have a high germination rate and can grow to be productive plants that help boost farmers’ incomes.
As you can imagine, this process is not simple. We must first select and grow a parent plant, then harvest its fruit and extract its genetic material (aka, its seeds). Once the seeds are properly processed and dried, we plant them in seed trays at our greenhouse facility. About 6 weeks later, the seedlings sprout and are ready to be transferred to farmers for planting in their small plots (usually about 1 hectare each). Approximately 2-3 months after being transplanted – depending on the variety - these hot pepper plants will bear fruit of their own, which will be harvested by farmers and delivered to our processing facility.
Our Seed Lab pilot program launched in 2019 and we are excited about the opportunity to continue to improve pepper varieties for our farmer network. Our goal is to provide every farmer with quality seedlings (each farmer plants over 16,000 seedlings per hectare!) so they can continue to work towards improving their livelihoods by growing amazingly delicious, and spicy, peppers.
Chili Chakra