How It All Began

In early June of 2000, Blair and Ben Ripple dug deep into rich volcanic soil and pulled out a handful of creamy white new potatoes. It was the first harvest for Big Tree Farms, Bali. ince those first humble beginnings on just under an eighth of an acre, Big Tree Farms has developed to become the premier producer of sustain ably grown produce in Indonesia. Now, over ten acres of land yields more than eighty different crops that are harvested daily in the wee hours of the morning, when ghostly clouds roll through the mountainous forest and the night crickets fill the air with a melodious symphony. Situated on the verdant slopes of Bali's second highest volcanic peak, Big Tree Farms' hand-carved terraces of produce flow seamlessly with the meandering contours of the jungle highland.

Vines of succulent Passion fruit hang from 30 year-old coffee and cacao trees, Vanilla orchids trail up the trunks of shade producing Gamal and Dapdap trees and among it all are the beds of organics vegetables.

A tremendous array of crops is grown at Big Tree Farms throughout the 365-day season. From long time standards such as heavy heads of Broccoli, and crisp Romaines to more exotic heirlooms like French Chantenay Carrots, D'avignon Radishes, Pennsylvania Brandywine Tomatoes and Italian Chiogga Beets.

The vision of Big Tree Farms was to create a model for successful small-scale sustainable agriculture in the humid tropics. The present farm situation in many of the poorer developing countries is a paradox. Conventional, high-input agriculture, extolled by almost every government in the world for its high yields and quick crop turnovers, is far too expensive for small farmers to maintain in the developing world. As a result, these same farmers have been forced to follow the old ways. Traditional agriculture, while being an incredibly graceful balance between man and nature, is often too far removed from the realities of a market economy. The result is a paradox of a small farmer and has been the seed of Big Tree Farms' vision.

With a philosophy that balances ecology with economy and values the power of education as the precipitator of change, Big Tree Farms has become not only a successful “green” business, but also a successful leader in the empowerment of local communities.

Having a vegetable farm was and is our first dream, the constant challenges of watching the sky and praying for no rain or pleading with the clouds to unleash their downpour, coaxing carrots to grow big and strong with compost, love and weeding, watching the seasons and veggies go through there ever changing dance and of course growing produce that is vibrant, delicious and organic will always be at our core. However, we soon realized that supporting ourselves through planting carrots here in Bali was never going to work. Out of that realization came some bold new ideas.

The first of which is the Firefly Supper Series… a chance for the farmers, drivers, office employees and us to all get together and put on a delicious dinner using what we grow and present it to tourists and locals in a beautiful setting, our farm. Supper series began in 2002 and quickly had a local cult following, in 2005 Firefly appeared in Gourmet magazine and the rest is history. To find out more about firefly…follow the link below. Besides highlighting all of our own produce we also wanted to support other local producers that were creating amazing culinary products all over the island. We searched Bali for wine, cheese, oils, spices…some were good, some were great and others were exceptional. That is how we found the sea salt. Every dinner we had, someone would murmur praise about the sea salt and we listened. We passed it around to our networks of chefs…and the wheels in our minds started to turn. This was exactly what we have been wanting and waiting to do, find and support local creators/producers/artisans and help them find a market so they could continue exactly what they have always been doing.

We jumped on this opportunity created some samples and flew back to NY to show it around. Response was great and we had our first traditional produced artisan product out on the market Handcrafted Balinese Sea salt. Our focus became clear and soon we followed the sea salt with Long peppers and now we are constantly searching, finding, creating and releasing new products all with the same idea in mind. Artisan produced, small batch products with market viability.

By creating a new eco-farm model that has minimal obstacles to market entry, requires no expensive inputs often found in conventional agriculture and provides real profit margins, Big Tree Farms has been able to offer the power of choice to the marginalized farmers of Indonesia.