BioTropic launches social project in Costa Rica
Our latest development aid project is currently under way in Costa Rica. Around 75 small-scale farmers from Alajuela Province in the north of the country will be learning how organic farming works. The aim is to help them achieve success on the international market with organic products. Humans and nature should benefit equally from the project.
"We hope to qualify these small-scale farmers so that they can produce exportable organic products sustainably and in sufficient quantities", says Sascha Suler, operations manager of BioTropic in Duisburg. To date, there are only a few farmers in Costa Rica who operate according to organic guidelines. Giant monopoly plantations with conventionally grown bananas and pineapples dominate most of the cultivatable land. They mostly belong to large international fruit conglomerates. Small-scale farmers are shut out and have almost no chance to gain a foothold on the international market.
