The Parish Experimental Farm, Granja Juan Ana, was established in the late 1960's on land that Fr. Greg purchased with his inheritance and named after his parents, John and Ann.   

With the help of the first Peace Corps Volunteer to work in San Lucas, Rod Foley, the Granja grew to include a wide range of animal projects which over the years have included broilers, laying hens, rabbits, hogs, milk cows, goats, ducks, turkeys, fish culture and a butcher shop to process the meat.  The extensive gardens produced fresh vegetables for the Parish kitchens and the nursery offered grafted fruit trees and flowers for sale.

Part of the original concept was to create a beautiful area where families could go to enjoy seeing the plants and animals. As such, in addition to the more common farm species, there were once also exotics such as spider monkeys, peacocks, guinea fowl, doves, bamboo, and a variety of tropical flowers. The Parish Forestry Nursery was also located in the Granja providing an additional interesting attraction.

From its beginning, in addition to supplying the Parish kitchens with meat and vegetables, the Granja was used as an educational and experimental center with the goal of developing techniques which could be transferred to individual families enabling them to raise healthy animals and vegetables on their own land obtained through the Land Distribution and Housing Projects. For example, a family could take a pair of rabbits or a sow to raise in their own yard and bring back some of the first litter as payment. 

In the late 1970's, in response to raising costs, a detailed analysis of the economics of each project was carried out by the agricultural committee to determine which products could be self-supporting and only those projects, which paid their own way, were retained.  This reduced the list of projects to the dairy, hogs, rabbits, laying hens, gardens and nursery. The coffee and croplands belonging to the Parish were also brought under the agricultural committee and managed as part of Granja Juan Ana. 

Over the next decade, the cost of purchasing animal feed, which was made from mostly imported ingredients, and transporting it from Guatemala City to San Lucas became prohibitive.  All of the large animal projects had to be discontinued and the emphasis shifted to using the extensive experience gained over the years on Granja Juan Ana to work with families and small farmers on their own land. Most of the cropland has been transferred to families through the Land Distribution Program with the Parish only retaining 60 acres of coffee.

Today the Granja still has vegetable gardens, and a nursery producing fruit trees, flowers and coffee seedlings. There is a small program of improving the native “criollo” chickens which are better adapted to the local conditions than imported varieties. Rabbits are raised for their meat and, equally important, their manure which is composted with the help of earthworms.  The finished compost is used by the farmers in the San Insidro small farmer project.