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Today we visited Escobar at her farm and got a deeper look at the life of this junior farmer. Jomarie Lanza reports

Her day begins at the crack of dawn, and from there Maura Escobar makes her way down to the plantations here in La Gracia village where she cares for over 800 Dragon fruit plants. Escobar comes from a family of farmers and began taking an interest in the work when she was only 10 years old. She is now one of the youngest farmers out west to cultivate and maintain a steady production of Pitaya.

Maura Escobar, Farmer, La Gracia village
"The reason for the Dragon fruit is because it gives a lot of money. It's kind of a little hard to deal with but in a few years you can see the amount of money you will make."

"The thing is that we as farmers we are our own boss. We depend on plants and so we take care of them that's what we do yes."

Escobar farms a wide variety of produce across a 7 acre span in the village, from papaya to lime, tomatoes, cucumbers and even melon. There are also a number of fruit trees on the property like mangoes, coconuts and soursop. Their biggest investment is mainly the dragon fruit plot which only produces fruits every 2 years or so, but despite this, Escobar says that maintaining the farm is no easy task.

Maura Escobar, Farmer, La Gracia village
"Sometimes it's really hard, it's really challenging it's sometimes because of rain you have a lot of products that you lose and sometimes it's really good. Like I said for farmers it's not really easy and it's not really hard but the thing is that sometimes our challenges are the pests and the most that is affecting us right now is the white fly. And so we have to deal with it and we have to control it and if not then we could lose our plants so it is really hard. It's not easy, it's not easy to handle it."

The labor is divided between three people, including her mother. While Escobar is out in the plantations, her mother plays a vital part in caring for her children and marketing the produce during the harvest time which will be coming up in June.

Jo
"So how do you balance your life between being out here and then having to take care of your family as well?"

Maura Escobar, Farmer, La Gracia village
"Like my mom whenever we have a harvest, well like right now we don't have my mom takes care of the children and whenever we have a harvest, she will take care of selling the products and I have to hire someone, hire my sister-in-law to look after the kids so I can be on the farm. She will hire a driver too, so the driver can take her. So she can deliver the fruits and I can stay here and mind the farm."

It's a family affair, and crops aren't the only thing this young mother is raising - she's planted a seed of agrarian belief in her young son.

Maura Escobar, Farmer, La Gracia village
"My little kid he is going to be 7 years old and he is really interesting in farming and is always like mom I want to go with you I want to go and help you and so I see he is very focused on being a farmer too, and I am really proud of it."

Sara Chub is female Farmer of the year while Nandy Aldana is Senior Farmer of the year.