Puerto Rico’s small farms – aided by outside groups such as World Central Kitchen – have seized a post-disaster opportunity to challenge the island’s import-reliant food economy

Nestled between a chemical factory and sparkling blue ocean sits a wonderland filled with rowdy goats, sturdy passionfruit plants and tiny chive blossom flowers that when bitten, erupt with garlicky flavor 50 times more potent than their size.

That this farm in Manatí, Puerto Rico, exists at all is a marvel, considering owners Efrén Robles and Angelie Martínez could not enter the property after Hurricane Maria tore through on 20 September. The couple said the hurricane destroyed 80% of the farm’s infrastructure and leveled its production capacity to zero.

“We lost a lot of material things but we created a lot of experiences,” said Robles, who is part of a movement to strengthen Puerto Rico’s agricultural economy after the worst natural disaster in the island’s history.

About 80% of Puerto Rico’s crops were destroyed in the hurricane, according to the island’s agricultural department, driving packs of farmers to retire or leave the island for the mainland. Those who remained, however, saw an opportunity to build from the ground up and, in turn, iron out obstacles within the island’s food economy.

“The ones that stayed operating are operating stronger than before,” said Robles, whose Frutos del Guacabo is part of a 50-farm cooperative that shrank from 80 farms after the hurricane.

Puerto Rico imported 85% of its food before the storm and relies on agriculture for less than 1% of its GDP. After the hurricane, the food import rate remained at 85%, according to Puerto Rico’s secretary of agriculture, Carlos Flores Ortega.

“Even after hurricane Maria, the rapid reincorporation of farmers to agricultural activity has made it possible to sustain that number,” Flores Ortega said in an email. “The objective set by the department of agriculture of Puerto Rico before Hurricane Maria and sustained after the natural disaster is to reduce the rate of food imports to 70% and increase local production to 30%.”

“Puerto Rico’s economy has always been categorized by being an import economy: we produce things we do not consume but then we have to import things we do consume, especially in agriculture,” said Gladys González-Martínez, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of Puerto Rico.

In response to Puerto Rico’s economic collapse in 2006, a sustainable farming trend has been growing on the island to give locals more control of their economy. The significance of this movement was highlighted in the wake of Maria, when the widespread destruction exacerbated existing economic problems.

Food staples, including plantains, were decimated, forcing people to import the fruit from surrounding islands. Coffee crops were destroyed and high-powered efforts to bolster them with new plants will probably take more than a year because of agricultural import laws.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tomatoes to be delivered as part of the World Central Kitchen initiative in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico. Photograph: Angel Valentin/The Guardian

The port system was overwhelmed after the hurricane because gas shortages and communications problems halted cargo deliveries, including food and water aid, from the island’s only functioning port. And relief supply deliveries from abroad were slowed by the Jones Act, a 1920 law that requires goods shipped between US ports to travel on US-made, -owned and -operated ships. More than a week after Maria, the act was temporarily waived to get relief supplies to the island more quickly.

The issues that slowed relief deliveries also made it more difficult for recovering industrial farms to access the imports they rely on, such as animal feed and agrochemicals.

“In the case of the small, sustainable farms, since they use their own input to farm, that has made a difference for them to start coming back,” González said. “It is not that they have the money, it is that they have the input.”

Robles said it took 177 days to bring his farm back to capacity after the hurricane. He did it with an eye on harvesting crops that strengthen the farm, such as amaranth, which insects can devour in place of other plants. The farm’s recovery – from zero to 100% production in less than six months – was aided by one of the handful of groups backing sustainable farms in Puerto Rico: World Central Kitchen.

The organization was founded in 2010 by the celebrated chef José Andrés, who after the earthquake in Haiti that year sought a vehicle to empower communities through food and to combat hunger across the globe.

As the federal and local governments struggled to provide basic necessities to people across Puerto Rico in the days after Maria, Andrés and his team, working under the #chefsforpuertorico operation of World Central Kitchen, cooked thousands upon thousands of meals. For two weeks in October, they were producing 120,000 to 150,000 meals per day.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Executive chef Griselle Vila, back to camera, is part of the World Central Kitchen initiative in Puerto Rico. Photograph: Angel Valentin/The Guardian

This enormous humanitarian undertaking was accomplished as food and other aid languished in about 9,500 shipping containers at the port of San Juan in the week after the hurricane because of the ruptured supply chain. World Central Kitchen responded by offering to buy anything local suppliers and farmers had – even if it meant that Andrés, an award-winning chef, had to make sandwiches from processed meats and cheese from a can.

By late June 2018, World Central Kitchen had cooked more than 3.6m meals. Its meal count had fallen to 8,000 a day, reflecting the shrinking need on the island as well as the group’s shift from providing emergency relief to recovery and preparation efforts for this year’s hurricane season, which began on 1 June.

This is where sustainable farming came in. World Central Kitchen wanted fresh, local food for their operation and to support the people who could provide it.

So in January, the #chefsforpuertorico chief operating officer, Erin Schrode, held a meeting for every Puerto Rican farmer the group could find. Schrode said she told the group: “I don’t know what our long-term mission will be, but I know I want to buy from you.”

Now, their four kitchens take deliveries regularly from a dozen farmers. “It’s a win, win, win for everybody,” explained Schrode.

In addition to buying nearly its entire supply locally, World Central Kitchen created a grant program for farmers like Robles who were rebuilding. The need was high for things such as irrigation systems, post-harvest cleaning and production facilities, greenhouses, simple machinery and coolers.

The federal government has allocated money to help boost farms, but it has failed to allocate goods such as seeds and coolers as quickly as non-profits have.

That speed was needed for Robles to quickly build his farm back up to capacity. And it’s a success he tries to share.

Robles calls Frutos del Guacabo an “open” farm, meaning anyone can visit.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Goat cheese covered with honey from Frutos del Guacabo. Photograph: Angel Valentin/The Guardian

There, people can see how Robles distinguishes his operation by providing specialty foods to the more than 200 hotels and restaurants he supplies, such as bok choy to satiate the ramen trend. “This is what we had to do to make people believe in farming in Puerto Rico, bring them produce every week,” he said.

He invites waiters and chefs from restaurants that use his ingredients to meet the goats he’s nurtured for six years and that produce a cheese so refined it is the most expensive at a San Juan five-star hotel. Fellow farmers are welcome to stop by and learn how to use hydroponics to grow 10 different plants, not just the typical produce grown with this method. People who are simply interested in where their food comes from can visit to taste unexpectedly tart purple triangle sorrel leaves and buy homemade hot sauce.

The mix of high-end culinary production, sustainable farming and growing experiments leaves farm visitors wondering: is Robles a farmer? A scientist? A chef?

He has a simple answer: “I’m a Puerto Rican.”