Ara Chackerian, a resident of Northern California and a long-time entrepreneur and philanthropist, spent many years traveling to Nicaragua with his family. Through their travels, they met Aram Terry, Owner of Madera Sostenible. Aram’s expertise in sustainable furniture fabrication and tree farm management along with Ara’s deep business development experience lead to a vision that is today Finca de Limonapa.
Ara and Aram agreed from the beginning that they wanted to develop the farm with community and the environment put first. This meant hiring local and paying a living wage, not use pesticide whenever possible and provide broader community support wherever possible.
Today, the farm organically certified which has allowed us to grow and sell a number of certified organic fruits and vegetables. Although the economic value in the farm will come from the Teak harvesting many years down the road, we believe that our efforts to hire and train local people will enable smaller farmers to see the benefits of more environmentally conscious farming practices.
2015 was our first planting season and over the last two years, community workers have planted over 240,000 Teak seedlings. Many of these seedlings are now more than twenty feet tall.
Please feel free to come visit us anytime.