| www.PlanetaVerdeMarAzul.org www.Green Planet BlueSea.com The Official Website for Maya Neem Farms, Yucatan, Mexico A Model Neem Plantation in Progress for Profitable, Integrated, Sustainable and Ecologically Balanced Rural Development, Renewable Land, Sea and Water Use, and Resource Conservation |
| Page 2 ¡Chiles de Yucatán .... Hot Profit$! This is a profitable and sustainable "Green Investment" |
| It´s worth repeating here the numbers just mentioned on the previous page: Growing Chile Habaneros in the Yucatan: Costs and Returns Depending upon seasonal variables, growing techniques, the current market conditions, as well as who you talk to, it currently costs between $80,000.00 and $100,000.00 pesos per hectare (2.457 acres) to grow and harvest Chile Habanero Peppers in our specific area Many buyers, including international importers will ONLY buy Habaneros grown in the Yucatan so despite global economic conditions, demand is still high and profitable. (It should be mentioned that production costs mentioned above include the use of Petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers which amount to between 50-60% of those costs.) This includes approximately 33,000 plants per drip-irrigated hectare (HA) which will produce between 15-20 tons of Chilies Per hectare during their prime fruiting life. Your (after costs) net profit on those chiles again, depending upon a number of variables, will generally right now, range between $180,000.00 MN on a medium to fairly "poor harvest, to $260,000.00 MN per HA on a "good" (not necessarily "great" crop). Chiles are a very labor intensive crop from preparing the ground for their planting to ongoing maintenance, to the hand-picked harvest. Preparation includes removing virtually all weeds and other plants where pests can hide and multiply. It also requires extensive care and caution to kill root-destructive "Nematodes" and other bugs that are natural inhabitants of the soil but which can decimate not only chile but numerous other crops as well. Again, using current "traditional growing methods", 50% - 60% of your costs will be spent on a wide variety of Petrochemical Agricultural products. Remember that number please. The Yucatán is a lively and life abundant biosphere and so maintenance includes constant vigilance against all manner of bugs, pests, and microbial "plagas". This historically has been dealt with through the use of Petrochemical based pesticides and fertilizers. In recent years, leaders in the industry (our clients and counselors) have been shifting their techniques to increasing use of organic products with Neem-based pesticides at the center of their programming. One of our most important clients recently estimated that they are now using 80% Neem vs. the long traditional petroleum based products. When asked why they have not discontinued Petrochemical products completely, the response was "Politics, not in any way the performance or promise of the Neem". Neem Pesticides currently cost approximately $300.00 per liter...when they are in stock and available. A quick digression: If we make our own comparable Neem pesticide on site we will reduce our costs from $300.00 pesos per liter to under $20.00 thus having a dramatic and immediate impact on not only our chile production and costs (and workers´health and safety!) but all other crops as well, including cucumbers, tomatoes, and Papaya, to name just a few of the Yucatán´s other famous cash and export crops. We will also eliminate contaminating chemical pesticides and fertilizers completely, thus not only cutting costs, serious risks to workers´and their families´future genetic health, but also beginning to heal the land, the biosphere, and offering increasingly valuable organic produce to our clients locally and for our year round export markets. The production costs above, FYI, are based upon the "traditional" application of chemical treatments and products. We do not as yet have all of the exact numbers for the transition to on-site organics but you can probably get a pretty good idea when comparing current costs at $300.00 MN per liter of product with our conservative estimate (IE: it could very easily be still lower!) of just $20.00 MN for our own equivalent, "Farm Made" products. That is a 95% reduction in chemical products costs straight away. Remember the figure we quoted above? It´s worth repeating: "Using current "traditional growing methods", 50% - 60% of your costs will be spent on a wide variety of Petrochemical Agricultural products. 95% of 50% = 47.5%. 95% of 60% = 57%. your new cost numbers dropping by 95% end up being a phenominal 2.5% to 3% of overall cost if you make you/we make our own ORGANIC PESTICIDES AND FERTILIZERS ON SITE. To be conservative, lets say your original cost of production/HA would have been $100K pesos per HA with 50% to 60% of that cost going for Petrochemicals. Again, let´s conservatively round upwards the new cost for "Farm Made" organic products to 5% of your total costs. That results in a 45% to 55% reduction in overall costs from our above example of $100,000.00 pesos per hectare to $45,000.00 to $55,000.00 Pesos per hectare! If the current profit per hectare is between $180K pesos and $260K pesos and we add another $50K pesos ... per hectare ...from the savings, not to mention the advantages and logic of going Organic, your revised profits per hectare will now be in the range of between approximately $230K pesos to $310K pesos/ hectare. Quite a range we realize but this is based upon the best and most complete information available while taking into account myriad, ever-changing variables, as well as considering that markets on everything are in a flux from global economic conditions. Will we still make a profit? You bet, and so will you! To be continued. Please Contact us directly for more information and remember: Thank you for your interest!! |
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