Our destination was Jardín, Antioquia. That’s outside Medellin – waaay outside. It can take 3 to 4 hours by car depending on road conditions and landslides. It was the rainy season, which in that area means mudslides, flooded roads, and unpassable mountain trails.
Thankfully I didn’t have to deal with the stress of navigating that far. I was on a press trip put together by Nespresso, and the stress of making sure that our group of journalists, radio personalities, and writers arrived alive was on the shoulders of Matthieu, the brand ambassador for Nespresso in Colombia.
“There are landslides,” he proclaimed the first morning as we all stood outside a hotel in Medellin in the cool morning air just after dawn. “We’ll take an alternate route, but it’s a longer one.”
I groaned inside. Longer than 4 hours? However, armed with plenty of water bottles and snacks – and plenty of Nespresso coffee at breakfast – we were ready for the long ride. Our caravan of SUVs set out towards the mountain passes.
Most of the trip to Jardín is uneventful, and along the highway there’s little to see in the way of coffee. Green mountains fade into more green mountains in a parade of natural beauty. We stopped at a lookout point to admire a mountain, Cerro Tusa, in the shape of a sharp triangle. Not surprisingly, the FNC used that peculiar mountain to represent Colombian coffee around the world. Yes, that’s the mountain behind Juan Valdez in the Café de Colombia logo.
As we neared Jardín, though, the world changed. Abruptly everything became coffee. All the hills and mountains, still a lush green, were now the lush green of coffee trees and banana trees, with homes dotted here and there over the landscape.
We had arrived in coffee country.
Would you like to learn more about coffee in Latin America? I’m Karen Attman, coffee professor and author. I have online coffee courses that can help you learn the fundamentals of coffee in record time. To get an idea of what’s involved with growing and processing coffee, check out From Coffee Plant to Your Coffee Cup.
Sustainable coffee farming in Colombia: an agronomist’s point of view
Over lunch that day I talked over a few of my concerns with an agronomist. Young and earnest, he shared a common concern with me (and everyone else in specialty coffee): the people behind the plants, the coffee farmers.
Why would I talk with an agronomist to understand coffee growers? What is an agronomist, anyway? Agronomists are crop scientists who help farmers increase the quality and quantity of their crop. Many work in the field, right on the farms. They help farmers determine the best way to manage their crops, structure their farms in an efficient way, and manage disease control.
In Colombia, one of the most famous agronomists is Profesor Yarumo, who isn’t a real person at all…kind of. Created by the FNC in 1985, he’s a fictional character who has been portrayed by a series of Colombian agronomists over the years. His mission is to help train the 2.4 million people in Colombia that depend on coffee, including coffee growers who live in remote areas that agronomists can rarely visit.
You can see Profesor Yarumo on the TV series The Adventures of Professor Yarumo, where he coaches coffee growers in the best practices for their farms. The TV series has won international awards for its environmental mission and has contributed to Profesor Yarumo being one of the most recognizable public figures in rural areas of Colombia.
So, yes, agronomists are important to a country that has historically depended on one important crop – coffee.
I asked this particular agronomist how a coffee farmer can get the most out of a coffee farm. The average farmer in Colombia has precious little space – less than 2 hectares – so how can they take advantage of that space? Producing more coffee at a better price without raising production costs can make the difference between poverty and a decent life, providing education and health care for the family.
Did this agronomist have an opinion?
The agronomist nodded. Of course he knew the answer. But the answer surprised me.
“Structure.”
How structure – and knowledge – changes the game for coffee farmers
To understand how a farm’s structure can make a difference, you first have to take into account the mindset of the average coffee farmer in Colombia. He or she probably only had a few years of proper schooling, is now about 53 years old, and spends most of the year working on coffee (and not other crops) on small farms that average just 2 hectares. That means he or she depends on coffee to survive.
You can imagine the challenges the (mainly) young agronomists have when trying to mold the viewpoints of older coffee growers. These farmers often cultivate coffee in the same way their grandparents did, and they feel proud of that. However, to get the most out of their small farms in these times of low coffee prices, they need to make changes.
So how can a farmer make the most of 2 hectares of land? Only about 1 hectare actually has coffee on it (you have to leave space between those plants!). So, obviously, how you space out those plants makes a difference. Plant density will vary depending on many factors such as variety, shade requirements, soil conditions, and farm temperature, but can range from 6,000 to 10,000 plants per hectare.
Good plant structure can help avoid soil erosion and can, therefore, contribute to healthier soil. Having healthier soil means, over time, higher productivity and better quality, which can translate into higher prices when they sell their coffee. Adequate plant structure can also help farmers in the fight against diseases that attack coffee plants and can make harvesting faster and more productive.
However, traditional farms often do not have a defined structure. You won’t see coffee trees planted in rows, and instead they seem to be randomly placed.
Of course, there are many other challenges facing coffee growers besides plant structure. Cleanliness is important; just one coffee cherry that gets stuck in a depulper can ruin the next lot of coffee. Crop renewal is also important, since older plants produce less coffee. However, it can be difficult to convince coffee farmers that they need to go through the expense and time involved in replacing part of their farm on a regular basis.
Environmental sustainability is also a hot topic in Colombia, including sustainable soil health, water use, and how mucilage is treated (it can be toxic to other plants).
These issues – as well as disease, pests, climate change, labor problems, low crop prices, and getting their coffee to buyers – are just a few items in a long list of challenges facing coffee farmers.
Nespresso and sustainable coffee farming in Colombia
So if a farmer can, on his small plot of land, use space wisely by planting the right type and amount of trees, keep the cultivation area in top condition, and process the cherries correctly to produce the highest quality coffee possible, then he’s probably going to see more money – without having to increase his expenses that much.
The question is, how can farmers get the information they need to make all those improvements? In Colombia, there are a number of programs to help farmers. In 2003 Nespresso launched the Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality Program, which supports 45,000 coffee growers around the world – the vast majority of them in Colombia.
The goal? To increase quality and productivity and, at the same time, increase sustainability. Nespresso proposes achieving this through education – supporting coffee farmers to improve all the characteristics that we discussed above, and more. It’s about getting them to do what they already know how to do – farm coffee – but helping them to do it a bit smarter and a bit more efficiently.
But is that a realistic goal? Can that be achieved?
Doña Olga and Don Luis
In spite of the rain in Jardín that day, we ventured up into the mountains in our caravan of SUVs. The vehicles slipped and slid over the narrow mud paths. Then our SUV suddenly stopped.
Now it was time to walk. Or slide. Even though I was wearing boots, they weren’t the plastic kind that farmers use, and weren’t a big help in gaining traction in the mud. I soon realized the umbrella was a stupid idea, and closed it and just concentrated on the beauty of these mountains as water dripped off the coffee leaves. I breathed in the comforting smell of earth and rain and flowers.
The walk up to Olga’s farm was steep, and I clung to tree branches and banana shoots to help me along the way. At the top of the hill Olga stood and waited for us, her hair pulled back in a tight bun, smiling from the dry security of her porch. Her husband Luis Alfonso was wearing the nifty plastic boots I needed, and smirked in a friendly farmer way as our small group of muddy visitors clumsily approached his house.
The house was small but comfortable for a family of two, and we crowded onto the wide, brightly painted porch that’s typical of rural houses. Olga proudly showed us her TV that she had just acquired the week before. Now they have cable, which means they can keep up with the latest soap operas and soccer matches.
The farm
But the most important part was outside the house. Our small group of reporters and radio personalities attempted to pick coffee with Luis Alfonso, slithering around in the mud while he calmly walked between coffee trees that were evenly spaced, with clearly marked areas with new plants.
Back near the house, he showed us their depulping machine and fermentation tanks, small but clean and neat. We peeked our heads into their drying areas, simple structures with raised beds, plastic sheeting for siding and roofing, and a metal door that kept out dogs and other curious animals. Clean and appropriate for producing specialty coffee on a small farm.
Luis Alfonso proudly showed us the room for storing their green coffee, with no other stuff stored there that could impart harsh smells – and thus flavors – to the coffee. So no kerosene, no motorcycles, no gas tanks (all common items on farms, and all highly polluting to coffee). He pulled out a double handful of parchment coffee and proudly showed it to us – beautiful coffee.
Luis Alfonso showed us the accurate records of expenses and income he and Olga kept in the books Nespresso provided for them. They knew how much they spent on their farm, and why. They knew how much they made from their crops, and they also knew why. They knew how much they spent on their household expenses, and they knew why. Those calculations enable them to plan for the future in a way that many of their fellow coffee farmers haven’t been trained to do.
Were they happy to be working with Nespresso? Olga beamed at me as she talked about the positive effects in their lives, and I saw it on their farm. Their farm had greater productivity, they were proud to work with an international organization, and their income had improved.
They did it. These older farmers living at the top of a mountain in a remote area of Antioquia, Colombia, had made important changes to their farming practices, changes that did not require a major economic investment. And they were seeing the positive results.
How can you support small coffee farmers and sustainable farming in Colombia?
You may not have the opportunity to visit a small farm at the top of a mountain in a remote part of a coffee growing country, but that doesn’t mean you don’t communicate in some way with those farmers.
You communicate with them when you try their carefully grown coffee, when you learn how to taste it and appreciate all its characteristics, and when you realize that an exceptional product is worth the extra money.
You let those coffee farmers know you appreciate all that work when you pay well for the coffee, and you buy it from shops or companies that support farmers with better prices as well as help imparting knowledge and technical support.
Yes, each cup of coffee matters.
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Would you like to learn more about coffee in Latin America? I’m Karen Attman, coffee professor and author. I have online coffee courses that can help you learn the fundamentals of coffee in record time. To get an idea of what’s involved with growing and processing coffee, check out From Coffee Plant to Your Coffee Cup.
Do you have any questions about coffee in Colombia? Get in touch with me using the nifty contact form below.
