Joaquin Orellana grew up in Santiago, Chile but as a young boy in his grandparent’s crop fields in the south of Chile, he developed a passion for agriculture.

Joaquin studied Agronomist Engineering at the Universidad de Chile in Santiago and obtained a Fertigation Course Scholarship in Israel that allowed him to understand and improve orchard management better.  This was not only helpful during the first part of his career, but the knowledge also comes into good use when talking to farmers in the fruit and vine industry.

He started his career as an agronomist at a fruit export company and later moved to Ferrero Rocher as a Hazelnut Programme Manager. Here he led the biggest hazelnut project in Latin America managing over 2 471 acres of hazelnuts. Here he expanded his knowledge on orchard management while he gained invaluable experience in irrigation and fertilization.

Another opportunity led him to change his career from orchard management to the fertilizer industry as a sales representative. Later he transferred to the technical side of the business as a Technical Manager, where he used his vast knowledge to develop different types of fertilizers such as Nitrification Inhibitors, Control Release Fertilizers (CRF), Slow release Fertilizers (SRF) and biostimulants mainly for the Chilean market, but also supporting the rest of Latin America and Europe.

At present Joaquin is the Manager Director Afrikelp-USA. He joined Afrikelp in 2015 as a Senior Agronomist supporting the business in the Americas, Europe, South Africa, and Asia. In 2016, he moved to California in the United States.

According to Joaquin, Afrikelp™ LG-1 is a unique kelp product with specific recommendation per crop and per phenological stage.  This allows farmers the opportunity to increase yield, improve quality parameters on high value crops and get positive effects under different environmental conditions and in different seasons. “All these benefits produce consistency effects that contribute to improve the profitability of farmers.”

According to him the other important benefit is that Afrikelp does not produce any negative effects.

Some of the new trends in agricultural is to be more efficient, to keep costs low while increasing yield and to use more natural and sustainable products. “I think in future easy access to information will have a huge influence on the industry.  Farmers have more access to information and are able to obtain more knowledge on agriculture management practices.  As such, they will also demand that companies give real benefits to famers. This is exactly what Afrikelp does. We are endeavouring to improve all our production processes and quality control but is also generating a great deal of technical information on most crops to have the right answer and solution for each customer question.”

Joaquin also has memorable ties to South Africa, other than Afrikelp. He was a Speaker at the fifth Table Grape Symposium in South Africa in 2007. Joaquin was also a speaker at the World Forestry Congress in Argentina in 2009.

He lives in Fresno, California with his wife, three daughters and a son. Apart from agriculture, his other passions have always been soccer and horse riding.  Other hobbies are mostly focused on outdoor activities such as skiing, hiking, and biking in the mountains.