through our everyday work, we transmit our love and care to the land, to the trees and to the fruit they bear.

La Calera Green

Driven by efficiency, we have learned to give our orchards all the care they need, and in return we prosper together.  

Through time, we have pushed the rod of efficiency, learning to work with the land and the living beings we care for every day. This has led to an integrated and balanced system that works to improve itself.

Some Stats

1.2

Million m3 Biogas / year

2,400

ha of new green desert land

300

Tons of Recycled paper / month

03. Mandarin Segments

We want to be efficient with our fruit! The most beautiful mandarins are exported as fresh produce, the ones that are ‘ugly’ on the outside, but still have a heart of gold, are processed into mandarin segments that are placed into cans or plastic cups. With nothing more than a simple process of pasteurization (heat), they gain 18 to 24 months of shelf life. The ‘ugly’ mandarins are peeled, segmented, and pasteurized in our facility to be exported as processed mandarin segments, thus making our crop more efficient and lessening our overall fruit waste.

04. Mandarin Peel Recycling

The mandarin peels (rinds) that come out of the processing facility are recycled into life through the making of Compost. Compost is a balanced organic fertilizer, combining Nitrogen (N) and Carbon (C) into a 1:10 ratio. The mandarin peels are mixed with chicken manure from our egg farms, then fermented over 3 to 4 months to turn this mixture into the final compost. Compost is used in our nursery and also applied to all our fields, supplying a large proportion of nutrients and reducing the use of chemical fertilizers. Compost is filled with with living beneficial bacteria (organic components) that interact with the roots of our trees in a positive way.

05. Water Efficiency

By using high tech sensor systems in our orchards we are being more in the use of water for irrigation. The use of sensors in and around the tree, help us understand better the water demands of the trees. We now listen to what the trees are telling us is a sort of way. By using drones with different light spectrum cameras, water sensors in the soil, dendrometers in the trunk of the trees, leaf water potential readers, fruit size sensors, and an array of electronic sensors reading what is going on, we are abel to be much more efficient in the use of water.

06. Solar Power

La Calera has already started to generate solar energy through solar panels to power water irrigation pumps; 520 kw-h have been installed already and we plan to increase to 1,200 kw-h (that is 1.2 Mw-h) in the next year.

We initially installed the electrical panels in a remote area, were there is no energy grid and it works fine, but we have now the ambition to build a big solar panel complex to inject electricity into our grid and thus be even more efficient.

07. Integrated Pest Management (IPM)

IPM is the use of beneficial insects and/or fungi to fight back the negative pests that occur in the orchards, thus, reducing the use of pesticides. La Calera has 8 IPM farms along all its farms - where beneficial insects and fungi are bred. In each IPM farm we produce specific beneficial insects or fungi to control specific pests, suppressing their populations and keeping pesticides to a minimum. La Calera produces Thrichoderma sp, Sympherobius sp, among other pest controllers.

08. Methane Gas Production

Since 1997 La Calera produces methane (CH4) gas as an energy source. Part of the chicken manure is used to generate biogas. The manure is mixed with water, and kept at body temperature in an anaerobic environment inside the biodigestors, where bacteria ferment the manure into methane gas. This is a controlled system where the gas is filtered and then burned into generating electricity. The CH4+O2 is turned into CO2 + H2O. The CO2 being 24 times less damaging to the environment than the methane to the environment.