We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mariana Silva Farmer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mariana Silva below.

Mariana Silva, appreciate you joining us today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

Professionally, I am still learning and growing. It has not been easy because although I grew up here on this hacienda surrounded by fields, I really did not know anything about hotels or agriculture. I studied filmmaking, and I worked on the field for 15 years; this career gave me the facility to do what I do today, which is to develop myself within a range of specialties. My learning has been more empirical. Today I am in charge of the hotel as manager, and at the same time I supervise the sowing of 36 hectares. I do the creative part of the development of gastronomic festivals, and document with still photos all what is taking place here.
Our greater challenge is to become more sustainable year by year, so we are always generating new projects that could help us achieve it. For example, implementations of farm animals in crop fields, the manufacture of organic products such as biofertilizers, the planting of medicinal herbs and their use within our restaurant and store. Something new that we are working on is “regenerative agriculture” or “agroforestry” in our vegetable garden.
With all this, we really hope our visitors see us as a positive example of the new forms of life that the planet urgently needs.
Taking better care of the soil, not only has has giving us the opportunity to offer workshops on agriculture, gastronomy, personal health retreats, gastronomic festivals, sale of products to restaurants and points of sale in the city; but also, has shows us how when the earth is well taking care of it generates health that benefits all of us.
I think that whatever you do with your true essence, other people can see and value it.
Our proposal is our own way of life, what we believe in, and that is what we try to convey to the people who visit us.
Once I found what it is that motivates me to be here, in this place, it became much easier to transmit it to everyone else; since it is my truth, I can share it with absolute certainty.
For me, being ingrained to the land, returning to the basic forms, reconnecting with our origins are the values that give us greater identity and fortitude.
Along this path, caring for the land and regenerating the soil has been our greatest conviction.

Mariana Silva, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

One of the best and most beautiful experiences in this area is to visit it during the rainy season, and spend a few days with us. The first day we take you up to the mountains looking for wild mushrooms, guided by the expert women of the nearby towns that carried all the ancestral knowledge of the region, and enjoy a delicious picnic in the middle of the forest, just to be treated the following day with a fabulous meal created by the guest chef, such as Eduardo García from Máximo Bistrot, who comes every year to cook with wild mushrooms, vegetables and animals from our garden and farm, making it a unique farm-to-table experience. Every morning, our breakfast with our house made bread, cream from our cow and jam from our fruit trees, will provide you with the energy to go for a horse-ride around the fields surrounded by mountains and mexican landscapes. On the last day, to close with a flourish, what about getting pampered with a personal health therapy, with a temazcal bath, medicinal herbs and massage.

Have you ever had to pivot?

One of the struggles we had at the beginning of our journey was taking care of the vegetable garden and crop fields because the soil was depleted. We invested a lot of time learning about the nutrients and organic matter needed to make it fertile again and be able to grow strong and healthy vegetables. As the soil became healthier, even the pests stopped visiting us. Unfortunately, this work nevers stops, due to climate change we have new deadly pests that are affecting our fruit trees, and some of them are dying, so we are in the process of making them healthy once again.

Another struggle, although I should say challenge, has been working with my family, trying to be a team, primarly because we don’t always see things the same way; on the other hand, this experience has been very enriching, specially because we all work towards the same goal.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

my partner is my husband, when we met we did not know that life would lead us to create this project, everything happened circumstantially

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sanandreshacienda.com
• Instagram: Hacienda San Andrés

Image Credits
Mariana Silva