In memory of
Don Pedro.
1936 – 2020 · Arecibo, Puerto Rico · New York
This farm carries the name of David's grandfather, Don Pedro — born and raised in Arecibo, on the north coast of Puerto Rico. He grew up on the sugar plantations that ran along that coast, where the cane and the land taught him his first lessons as a boy: how weather behaves, how soil answers, how a long day pays off decades later if you do it right.
As a man, he left the fields for the office — and built a career on the corporate side of the tobacco industry, in sales and marketing. He spent his working life in rooms full of handshakes and paperwork, and his evenings on land he still understood better than most people understand their own houses.
He came from a generation that didn't separate work and family, or work and land. The plantation was the teacher; the company was the trade; the family was the whole reason for any of it. He raised four children on that equation, sent them into the world with it, and never let any of them forget that the land is the thing that keeps feeding you long after the job has stopped.
Alzheimer's took him slowly, then all at once, in 2020. He did not get to see the farm in Wallkill — but the farm is, in every real sense, his. His name is over the door because his ideas are in every decision: grow the good thing. Share what you know. Don't waste the land. Take care of the people around you.
The roots
From an Arecibo cane field
to a Hudson Valley one.
Puerto Rican farming carries techniques this continent forgot — intercropping, companion planting, deep rotations, respect for the microbiome before anyone had a word for it. Small plots producing impossible abundance. Animals as partners, not product. A neighbor's problem being your problem.
Don Pedro learned all of that as a boy on the Arecibo sugar plantations, long before he ever put on a tie. David grew up with those instincts passed down the table. What we practice here is a translation — Caribbean wisdom rewritten for a Northeast climate, in a field outside Wallkill, on soil we've spent six years rebuilding.
The family
Who's tending it now.
David Serrano — Navy veteran (2005–2011), ten-plus years in cannabis operations, bilingual, co-owner and co-operator. Studied CBG under Dr. Ethan Russo and is researching its serotonin-system effects here on the farm.
Mia Serrano — co-owner, co-operator. Farmer. Maintenance tech. Momma. She works the land and the machines as much as anyone here. When something needs fixing, she's already got her hands on it.
And Don Pedro — still here, in the name over the door and the decisions underneath it.