Thoughts on the first half of 2026

Written by Gonzalo Úrculo, farmer, CEO and co-founder of CrowdFarming.

Note: I wrote this text as an internal document to align the people who work at CrowdFarming every day. For a couple of years now, I have also shared it with our community of farmers, customers, and suppliers.

At the end of the article, you will find a glossary explaining the meaning of technical terms or internal jargon marked with an asterisk (*) throughout the text.

Has sustainability gone out of fashion?

I haven’t read company statements on sustainability on LinkedIn or in the press for a while. It’s as if sustainability managers have now transformed into AI gurus.

It very much looks like the sustainability that was done for outward appearances has lost momentum in the corporate world. And this, in my opinion, is positive because it reduces noise and allows actions to speak for themselves.

Corporate sustainability is a competitive advantage when it is part of a company’s culture. Well-applied sustainability achieves positive and sustained effects over time on business metrics.

During this first half of the year, we have managed to reach these business metrics, not through a one-off effort but through constant drive in the same direction:

• 2,969 farmers selling their harvests at a fair price.
• Soil analysis conducted on 47 new farms to measure the impact of regenerative practices, and designing an agronomic programme together with the farmers to increase their soil’s natural fertility in the long term. With these 47, there are now 100 farms within our regenerative organic farming programme.
  
• €1,794,784.43 in sales of fruits and vegetables in conversion to organic. Receiving a fair, predictable, and stable price is especially key when a farmer is in the delicate phase of conversion to organic because their trees usually experience a drop in productivity.
• 25% increase in sales of All Is Good* (our brand of processed products) compared to last year.
  

And furthermore, we are starting to see the results of our efforts at an economic level. For the first time in 5 years, we have finished the first half of the year with positive EBITDA*, and growing at double digits. Betting on the direct production and sale of organic products is profitable.

To achieve this positive EBITDA*, we have all had to make sacrifices and prioritise spending items well.

An example of this is that we have not renewed our B Corp* seal. It was a difficult decision because this seal has positive aspects. Renewing the seal cost €16,000 this year and, thinking clearly, although it’s cool to have a company audit the sustainability of your operations, we saw that we weren’t getting the most out of it and that this money (a scarce resource in our startup) could be dedicated to more farmer training and to raising the salaries of some profiles in our team. We do not rule out getting recertified in a couple of years.

Successes to celebrate from the first half of the year

Successes must be celebrated. Especially those you pursue, but also those you achieve almost by accident. I have found that when you surround yourself with good people, the mission that unites you is pure, motivating, and ambitious; along the way, good things happen that you didn’t even count on.

We do not have a goal to reach a certain percentage of young farmers selling through{Brand} CrowdFarming but we were very excited to see that, naturally, we have achieved a metric that is well above average.

The success we have fought for the most has been the reduction of delivery incidents, especially during the summer months.

Thanks to quality audits in the field, good coordination between the field and logistics teams, and proactive communication with customers, we have managed to reduce the percentage of orders with reported incidents during the second quarter from 3.5% in 2025 to 2.9% in 2026. Staying below 3% is a success for the most difficult time of the year, with high temperatures at both origin and destination. Next year, we will fight to stay below 2.5%.

When you work with fresh produce and do not apply fungal treatments to preserve its appearance, having incidents is something we must accept.

Fewer incidents translate to fewer frustrated customers. And this is reflected not only in the number of positive reviews but also in more sales for our farmers: during the first six months, we sold 162,407 more orders than last year, surpassing the 1.5 million order mark.

And the magic is that we achieved this with €784,579 less in marketing spend, which represents a 22.8% reduction compared to the 2025 investment.

Our position on subsidies

The CrowdFarming culture is more about executing than debating. Especially when it comes to debates on macro issues that are not directly related to our mission.

But there are two issues on which we have decided to take a stand: subsidies and organic farming.

Subsidies granted in a prolonged and generic way do not help farmers. Some farmer friends get angry with me when I criticise the purpose of certain subsidies.

The more I know about market dynamics, the more certain I am that we farmers would be better off if the farming industry didn’t receive so many subsidies.

Agricultural aid (the Common Agricultural Policy) accounts for nearly a third of all EU spending. And yet, between 60% and 70% of European soils are degraded, having lost fertility at an accelerated rate over the last five decades. It is becoming increasingly difficult for us to produce food.

The EU has been subsidising it’s farms for decades and the most basic goal has not been achieved: improving or at least maintaining its natural fertility.

As always, there are exceptions. There are very useful subsidies, such as those of a one-off nature that encourage entrepreneurship—soft loans for a young farmer who wants to buy a few hectares or a tractor—or those that offer one-off aid to an area affected by an extreme weather event or training in organic farming.

But subsidies just for farming, in an attempt to make European products price-competitive, are a bottomless pit. They create a market that favours the supermarket, which can pay a lower price to the European farmer.

European products must differentiate themselves through quality, and by quality, I mean being organic, more nutritious, and fresher. And if the supermarket wants to sell European products to improve its image with the consumer, it must pay for their real value. This is something that doesn’t happen when you buy something subsidised.

With fewer subsidies, perhaps there would be lower taxes and more purchasing power for the consumer. Or that money could even be used to educate society on the importance of good nutrition or greater environmental awareness.

A well-educated consumer has a more powerful effect than any subsidy. Sustaining a system with artificially low prices through subsidies will cost us all (farmers and consumers) more and more.

On the other hand, we must see farmers not only as those who produce food but also as those who care for and repair Europe’s largest infrastructure: agricultural and grazing land. Good soil care improves biodiversity and resilience to extreme weather events or large fires. And we all benefit from this.

Perhaps subsidies should be transformed into a payment for a service to farmers who are actually caring for and improving the soil? Like construction or service companies that repair roads.

And regarding organic farming

In 1991, the European Union agreed (bravo!) to create harmonised organic farming regulations among all member countries.

This regulation has created a single, reliable standard with a seal recognised by the consumer. Before 1991, there were multiple national and private standards; today, any product with the Euro-leaf complies with the same rules throughout the EU.

The organic surface area in the EU has grown from 5 million hectares in the early 2000s to more than 17 million today, representing 11% of European agricultural land. This is still far from the 25% target the EU set to reach by 2030.

All the mechanisms the EU has put in place are based on subsidies for farmers.

But subsidies do not create a market. To be encouraged to take the step, farmers need technical support and to see that there is a growing demand that offers them some sales security at a competitive price. And this is where direct sales play a key role.

At CrowdFarming, we don’t just sell products that are already organic; we have created and must continue to increase the market size for products in transition to organic. It is the most effective way to convince a farmer.

Through our mixed box, more than 40 fruit and vegetable farmers are able to sell their products during the most critical stage: the 3-4 years that must pass until a tree can be certified and get used to a new way of farming without pesticides or chemical synthetic fertilisers.

I cannot think of a metric that better defines our success than the number of farmers who switch to organic thanks to sales security.

To avoid getting discouraged, let’s forget about the EU target, which the European Environment Agency now acknowledges is unlikely to be met in the remaining years. The current surface area would have to double. Let’s keep succeeding farmer by farmer, farm by farm. We have the most effective team and methodology to achieve it: a direct sales channel that offers them sales security at a fair price.

Upcoming launch of Harvest Pass

A well-informed customer and farmer sustain the transition to organic better than any subsidy.

When a customer buys directly, they are choosing the type of agriculture they want. When a farmer receives a fair price for their crops, they have the possibility to invest in the most effective way to improve their soils, rather than the most effective way to get a subsidy.

Over the last year, we have organised 10 courses in 10 European regions to explain key concepts of regenerative organic farming to 160 farmers and share success stories they can replicate or at least be inspired by.

In addition to training, we are supporting farmers with soil analysis and technical assistance. At the same time, we fuel demand by generating awareness and investing in research that we then share with an audience of 2.5 million people.

To coordinate all these actions, in 2024 we launched the 1% for the Soil programme: since then, we have allocated 1% of sales from regenerative organic farm products to fund these actions. This amount is deducted from our margin, without affecting what the farmer receives or what the consumer pays.

Over the coming months, we will be launching the biggest action in support of organic-regenerative agriculture in our history.

On one hand, a free membership to the 1% for the Soil community, to stay up to date with advances in the regenerative movement and propose ideas on how to invest the funds.

We will also be launching the Harvest Pass, a paid membership that contributes to the financing of this programme in exchange for volume savings on purchases and early access to the full harvest catalogue from organic-regenerative farms.

Our biggest mistakes (or the most expensive lessons)

In direct sales, logistics failures and quality audit gaps that result in a product arriving in poor condition are the most costly mistakes. Not because of the refund on the affected order, but because of the loss of trust from the customer who experiences it, especially if it is one of their first orders.

In July we launched a new service allowing customers to quickly and easily raise an issue if something arrives in poor condition. It is delivering very strong results, both in terms of ease of use for the customer and in helping farmers and us to better understand how the issue occurred (thanks to the information and photos provided by the customer).

On the climate front, a variable that always forces us to have a plan B, or even a plan C or D ready, this semester found us better prepared. Even so, in May our farmers were left without quality cherries due to hail damage, and to avoid complaints we had to propose changing the composition of some mixed boxes. This triggered a spike in order cancellations in our monthly mixed fruit subscription.

It was an unforeseen event that hit us hard economically. Up to that point, the number of households receiving a monthly mixed box of 3 seasonal fruits had been growing steadily. In May, 3,333 out of a total of 70,927 subscribed households cancelled their subscription. It is the organic fruit subscription box with the most subscribers, which allows us to guarantee demand for the farmers who take part.

Rethinking tree adoptions

Tree adoptions were decisive in my early days as a young farmer and were the seed of what CrowdFarming is today.

In 2010, my brother and I took over my grandparents’ orange grove in Bétera, near Valencia. Half the trees were severely weakened by Phytophthora* and when we made the switch to organic (with very little experience), they didn’t survive and died.

The situation was: half the farm productive, the other half dead. A grant awarded to us as young farmers was slow to arrive because the Valencian Regional Government was on the brink of default* and delayed the payment.

We needed to replant more than 10,000 orange trees but had neither the money to finance it nor any guarantee we could sell the harvest if we did.

At that point, with our backs against the wall, we created and launched the idea of adopting an orange tree: customers paid for the annual upkeep and chose a name for their tree. We planted it and reserved for them the harvest from an adult tree, which they received throughout the season.

Photo from 2015 with one of the first adopted trees.

For our farm, and for 259 others, adoptions today represent a guaranteed sale at a fixed price. Thanks to adoptions, new farmers are able to certify their crops as organic every year.

The benefits of adoptions for farmers have always been clear, but what about for consumers? Beyond being able to have a tree in their name, have we managed to explain all the advantages?

During this first half of the year we have been redefining the system to make it more straightforward and more beneficial for consumers. Someone who adopts a tree will get the best price, will have priority if the harvest is limited, will receive agronomic updates on how their tree is developing, and will be able to visit the farm free of charge.

We have set ourselves the goal of helping more than 50,000 trees transition to organic over the next 12 months.

Adoptions were the beginning, and they are also the future for direct sales of organic products to keep growing.

We make organic-regenerative agriculture possible for farmers and accessible for consumers.

Glossary and sources

• EBITDA: operating profit before interest, taxes, and depreciation.
• Phytophthora: a soil fungus that causes root rot.
• Organic-regenerative agriculture: Refers to a holistic and results-driven approach that builds on the foundations of organic farming to actively restore ecosystems while improving farmers’ livelihoods. Where organic sets the baseline (eliminating synthetic inputs and protecting soil from chemical degradation) regenerative goes further, combining practices such as cover cropping, minimal tillage, and livestock integration to improve soil health, increase biodiversity, sequester carbon and water, and enhance the nutrient density of food. At CrowdFarming, we understand that organic-regenerative agriculture is context-specific: what matters most is demonstrating that the actions taken on each farm are having a measurable, positive impact on the environment.
• AIG (All Is Good): our brand of processed products. All Is Good products are made from harvest surpluses or delicate fruit that cannot travel to its destination without spoiling on the way. It is a way of ensuring that all fruit and vegetables have commercial value.
• Default: Between late 2011 and 2012, the Valencian Regional Government came close to defaulting: it accumulated nearly €5 billion in outstanding obligations and required extraordinary state mechanisms to avoid a wider suspension of payments.