Rico Farms is a family owned and run farm, located on the western coast of Sonora, Mexico, a few miles from the Cortez Sea. Francisco Tapia Sr. is an agricultural engineer who started the farm 30 years ago. Today he runs it with his son, Francisco Tapia Jr.

The farm is spread across four separate locations, with a total of 5,000 acres. This enables them to take advantage of unique micro-climates and extend their growing season from September to June. Rico Farms purposefully keeps more than half of their farmland fallow, which allows wildlife to flourish, fills the aquifer, and improves the health of the land overall.

Rico Farms is paving the way in soil health and biological innovation. They research and create their own bacterial and fungal amendments, used to improve soil fertility and microbial activity. This ‘Bio-factory’, as they call it, has improved frost tolerance of their plants, raised resistance to disease, and increased overall yield, while lowering costs. The Tapias are continuously improving and expanding, and are exploring how to share successful Bio-factory byproducts with other farms.

The Tapia family’s “3 P’s” philosophy is that people and planet need to come alongside profit, not after it. Rico Farms demonstrates their commitment to sustainability by offering Fair Trade certified produce, installing water-saving drip systems and solar panels, introducing lacewing and other beneficial insects, and providing a safe and comfortable environment for their workers. Funds from the Fair Trade program support health clinics and housing opportunities for workers. Rico Farms also takes every opportunity to make daily life more comfortable for their employees, providing their own medical care facility, facilitated video chats to workers’ home villages, education and after-hours equivalency programs in the on-site Rico Farms Corporate School, plus building sports and leisure areas on the farm for all families in the community to enjoy.

Rico Farms has been organic since 2007.

Fun Fact: The lacewing, which keeps the land free of pests, can be seen on the farm logo.