Alfredo
Ivan
Lidia
Text: Eva Breukink; Photography: Studiorootz | Berber van Beek
Ivan Gonçalves (2001) spends his days from sunrise to sunset on the plantation his family leases in Santa Cruz. Planting, harvesting, caring for the animals—it’s what he loves most. He does this together with his father Alfredo. His mother, Lidia, runs the store: Toko i Fruteria El Caribe. Here, innovation blends seamlessly with respect for traditional farming methods.
As a little boy, Ivan already helped his father on the land—at first just the one-and-a-half hectares behind the toko and family home. Coconut palms, fig bushes, and papaya trees grow here. Pigs and wild boars happily dig in the mud. Pens house rabbits, sheep, goats, cows, and a bull. Ivan loves his animals dearly and cares for them as if they were his children.
“The animals help us keep the land clean and eat grass and weeds,” says Lidia Gonçalves-Pereira. “We tie them to different spots so they can graze there. Sometimes behind the toko and sometimes the cows and donkeys graze on the plantation.”
“Any fruit or vegetables that are damaged or overripe go in a bucket for the pigs and rabbits. We don’t throw anything away.”
The little plot behind the house was too small. Ivan and his father Alfredo wanted to expand. Since 2020, the family has leased Plantage Santa Cruz, just five minutes from the toko. This is Ivan’s domain. Here, he feels at home—driving the tractor, plowing the fields, and planting crops. Still, his father is always close by, guiding him as a teacher and advisor.
“This is what I’ve wanted since I was a kid. It’s my passion. I love it. Even if I wouldn’t earn a cent, I’d still do it. The satisfaction you get from harvesting—that feeling can’t be matched by any salary. Every morning I get started with joy.”
All day, Ivan runs back and forth across the plantation and between the fields and the toko. One bundle of energy. Yet there are always those quiet moments, when he looks out over the land toward the hills. A cow or donkey grazing in the distance. A bird flying overhead. And for a moment, he feels pure happiness.
On this nineteen-hectare site on the southern coast of Curaçao, Ivan is working on his future. His dream is to grow enough food for a family to live comfortably from the land. To achieve that, he’s experimenting in these first years with new crops, as well as with different varieties of familiar vegetables.
“It’s a learning process—finding out what works and what doesn’t. We have our basics, the things we always plant. But I’m also looking for other options. For example, I grow four types of pumpkin to see which one does best.”
From his father, Ivan learned the basics of crop rotation. On a single plot, at least three different crops follow one another. If there’s pumpkin now, okra will follow, then sweet potato. Where melon once grew, beans or kònkòmber chikí (West Indian gherkin) come next.
“They have to be truly different kinds of crops. Each plant uses different nutrients from the soil. By rotating, we keep the soil from depleting too quickly.”
They started carefully on five hectares of the plantation. One section, where a dam and runoff make the land too wet for most plants, is still unused. But Ivan’s goal is to grow crops on every possible corner. With his own plow and tractor, he can farm commercially without relying on outsiders.
Groundwater is pumped from wells into two storage tanks—more than enough to irrigate the family’s two plots and even support neighboring farmers.
The plants receive the same love and attention as the animals. Sometimes you’ll find Ivan with his mother Lidia among the young papaya trees, other times with his father Alfredo in the fields of okra and peppers. When he harvests coconuts, he even places a cushion on the ground to soften their fall.
The harvested fruits and vegetables are sold to supermarkets and restaurants, such as Hòfi Mango next door to the plantation. But most of it goes straight from the field to the family’s own toko. Pumpkins, cassava, eggplant, spinach, Madame Jeannette peppers, sweet potatoes, bell peppers—bins in the toko overflow with fresh produce from the plantation. Fruit is grown behind the store: coconuts, papayas, bananas.
And, in true Portuguese tradition, grapes and figs. More than twenty grapevines form a leafy canopy creating a shaded roof. Once a year, the grapes are harvested to make wine for the whole family. The fig harvest continues another ancient Portuguese tradition—figs have been cultivated in Portugal for thousands of years. Lidia sells her figs in the toko.
“Ah, those figs, they’re simply delicious. I could snack on them all day. But of course, I don’t—otherwise there’d be nothing left to sell!”
For the people of Santa Cruz and the surrounding area, Toko El Caribe is an institution. Lidia took over the toko—then a simple fruteria—in 1990 together with her ex-husband, from another Portuguese couple. Today it has become a small supermarket, selling everything: locally grown fruits and vegetables, soft drinks, canned goods, shampoo, toilet paper, razor blades.
Ivan and his father Alfredo prune the grapevines in March, about a week after the full moon. This is one of those timeless pieces of farmers’ wisdom. “When you prune during the waxing moon, a lot of sap flows from the vines,” explains Alfredo, who learned the practice from his ancestors. “That sap is the blood, the strength of the tree. After the full moon, the plant holds the sap inside.”
The same wisdom applies to all crops, as Ivan has now experienced for himself. Like his father, he looks to the moon for the right time to prune, plant, and harvest. But he also makes use of modern technology.
“I use an app that shows me the moon’s phases a month in advance and tells me what to plant when. Based on that, I plan my work.
If it’s possible, we combine old wisdom with new tools.”
Ivan is a skilled craftsman, just like his father. If something breaks, they fix it themselves. Ivan is a certified electrician, but he can also work as a carpenter or mason. Still, farming is the only thing he wants. “This is what I really want. I love it. The hard work outdoors and all the good it produces—the healthy, fresh fruits and vegetables. When I’m driving my tractor across the land, I feel proud and happy.”
“As a child, you always hear that farmers are dumb. There’s so little appreciation for farming. Young people who might consider it are often discouraged by social pressure. I got an education, I tried different jobs. I became a farmer not because I had to, but because I chose to. And that’s what I want to show.” That’s why Ivan pours all his time and energy into developing the land. He wants to grow.
“One day, Plantage Santa Cruz will be the biggest plantation in Curaçao. That’s my dream.
This campaign is co-financed by the Ministry of Economic Development (MEO).
