In the orange groves of Masia El Carmen, near Bétera north of Valencia, the last day of harvest unfolds under a soft morning light. Gonzalo and Gabriel Úrculo move between rows of trees inherited from their grandfather, pruning shears in hand, helping workers fill crates destined for customers across Europe. Neither brother ever expected to become a farmer, but after their grandfather's death left the farm abandoned, they revived it in 2010 by switching to regenerative organic methods.
Today, the Úrculo brothers run CrowdFarming, Europe's largest direct-to-consumer platform for organic agricultural products. The company's success hinges on a tree adoption system: customers pay an annual fee to adopt a tree, which the farm maintains and ships its fruit directly to the adopter. “Tree adoptions help us secure a certain stability in demand,” Gabriel explains.
From One Farm to a Continental Network
After testing the model on their own farm, the brothers launched CrowdFarming in 2017. The platform now lets consumers buy fruit, vegetables, olive oil, and nuts directly from partner farms across Europe or on local markets. “On the website, customers can choose the farm and know exactly who the farmer behind it is,” Gonzalo says. “We create a direct connection between farmers and consumers.”
The company has grown to over 300,000 active tree adoptions and works with more than 300 partner producers across the continent. One of them is Fernando Agramunt, manager of an organic olive farm that converted from conventional methods several years ago. He says direct sales have paid off: “Selling 10,000 litres in bulk is not the same as selling to families willing to pay a bit more for very high-quality olive oil.” The model helps absorb the higher costs of organic and regenerative farming, and “our entire harvest is sold to the 3,000 customers sponsoring trees on the farm.”
CrowdFarming's logistics hub, Crowd Log in Valencia, sorts and ships thousands of orders daily. “Last year, nearly two million parcels were shipped from here. We don’t keep stock, and we work with several transport companies, which allows us to move faster,” says site manager Clara Fernandez. In 2024, the company posted revenues of €65 million. Following its recent acquisition of the French platform La Ruche qui dit Oui!, the group now connects nearly 10,000 producers with two million users across around thirty European countries.
CrowdFarming co-founder Juliette Simonin sees the platform as part of a broader transformation: “We truly want to transform a sector where some practices no longer work. From producers forced into unsustainable production models, to increasingly extreme weather events requiring more resilient farms, to prices that no longer allow farmers to survive — the whole system needs rethinking.” This vision aligns with challenges faced across Europe, such as the recent wildfires in Murcia that required military intervention—a reminder of how climate pressures are reshaping agriculture and emergency response alike.
Gonzalo Úrculo sums up the ambition: “Our dream is to show that regenerative organic farming is possible, that it can be highly profitable, and that it can feed all of Europe.” For now, CrowdFarming is proving that direct connections between producers and consumers can build a more resilient food system, one adopted tree at a time.
