the great outdoors GoingGreen Farming in the Family

Farming is in Carlos Amaral’s blood. As a child, he and his siblings went to school during the day, before heading to the fields afterwards: “We’d take our pedal bikes or Dad would pick us up,” he remembers.

He wasn’t the only one. This was common among all farmers’ children: “It was a rite of passage. It taught work ethic. It was a good time spent with family members, despite the work.”

Although his early life had been an ‘apprenticeship’ for his later career, he did try another job before following in his father’s footsteps: “I had a stint working with an accounting firm, but I did not like being in an office,” he says. “That was the impetus for pursuing farming.”

While Amaral cares passionately about what he does, there’s no sugar coating the work involved. Six days a week he is up by 6am and, depending on the weather and the time of year, he doesn’t get home until after 7pm.

Founded in 1962, Amaral Farms has a total of five full-time employees, including Amaral and his brother. They operate from their farm base on Watlington Road in Devonshire, but also rent fields across the island. In total, they have about 25 acres of cultivated land and a lot of those fields will grow two, sometimes three crops a year.

Bermuda’s growers are unique in that they don’t specialise in one crop, and Amaral grows most of the ‘alphabet’, from anise to zucchini: “Everything that can grow, we do grow, in some amount, in some scale, seasonally,” he says.

He has a degree in plant science and enjoys experimenting: “The best part is seeing a crop come to fruition from start to finish, particularly if you’re experimenting with a new variety or method of production and you see an increase in yield,” he says. Mangoes are his current passion project.

The biggest downside to farming in Bermuda is hurricanes: “You’ve got all your chips on the table when a hurricane comes along,” he says. “There’s no real support for us from a financial standpoint. It’s not like we have crop insurance. You take your hit on the cheek, grin and bear it. You roll up your sleeves and persevere.”

The logistics of getting what you need to produce crops, such as seeds and cuttings also cause a headache for Amaral as do pests and diseases. Where possible, he uses organic products but, he says, “they only get you so far, then you use the conventional.”

When not using organic products however, he only uses a wellresearched product, applied carefully: “I eat out of the same field that we sell out of. My children eat the same product. We do our due diligence to make sure we’re providing the safest product to the market.”

In spite of the hard work and hurricanes, Amaral wouldn’t do anything else: “Every day, I learn something. I’m blessed that I have a lifestyle, not a job,” he says.