Environmental Benefits of Using Fresh Hearts of Palm

The driving force behind our passion for the palm is by far its environmental benefits.  We began cultivating hearts of palm in our family farm in Costa Rica in the 1980’s as an alternative crop to help combat the vicious cycle of Slash and Burn Agriculture.

Simply put, Slash and Burn Agriculture happens when farmers have to cut down and burn the rainforest to clear land for farming.  The problem is that the intense tropical rain soon washes away all of the fertile topsoil that used to be held down by the forest.

The land then becomes useless for farming and the farmers are forced to cut down more rainforest, repeating the cycle.  Our company’s founder, German Llano, worked with a conservation group in Costa Rica to try and find alternatives to this cycle that could still sustain the local farmers and their families. The Heart of Palm or “Palmito” proved to be a great alternative.

One Earth Hearts come from the Pejibaye Palm, or Peach Palm in English. The Peach Palm thrives in extremely poor soil making an ideal substitute for traditional crops. We cultivate the same palm over and over, instead of harvesting it from the rain forest.  The Peach Palm is a multiple palm and grows similar to a banana plant, in that it sprouts multiple shoots. Cultivating means that we allow three generations of the palm to grow simultaneously: a large, medium and small palm.  When the large palm is ready for harvest, we cut it and allow a new baby palm to sprout and grow. This continuous process keeps the palm alive and producing for over 20 years, eliminating the need to slash or to burn any more of our irreplaceable rainforest.

By using One Earth Fresh Hearts of Palm, you are directly contributing to a very effective part of the solution to global deforestation. You, and anyone you share your hearts of palm with, are making a real difference in this direly urgent situation.  As we like to say, “save a tree, eat a palm”.