PROJECT: Nicaragua
REGION: Matagalpa, 1050–1400 masl
PERIOD: Since 2015, ongoing
- Cooperation with small-sized farmers, experimental processing, unique microlots
- Social and other support for women coffee farmers
“I have discovered the coffee culture during my studies. For me, coffee is an amazing plant that needs communication with insect and microorganisms as well as balance with surrounding plants and trees to grow properly. It’s quite easy to fall in love with a plant like that. Or at least for me,” explains Chepe, agroecologist and our project manager in Nicaragua since 2015. Chepe oversees the entire process from coffee cultivation through harvesting to processing and helps us liaise with new small sized farmers. Thanks to his work, we have had an opportunity to cooperate with 10 farming families and explore several microlots and various processing methods in the last 4 years. Chepe provides education and training to the farmers as well. Together, they explore new coffee processing trends, conduct various experiments, seek to improve washing stations and teach farmers how to conduct their own coffee cupping. The organic pest control is an important topic together with waste water filtration systems.
Over the years, Coffee Embassy EU together with mamacoffee have put together the Aranjuez Women Project to support women in the coffee market. We cooperate with small-sized women farmers, showing them how to produce premium coffee and teaching them about basic economic and environmental issues.
In general we are focusing on little changes which usually mean big things for the local people. In 2018 we raised money from the charity raffle at Prague Coffee Festival. This profit was used for the building material for 3 women farmers in Nicaragua – Norma Andrea – received material for concrete water channel, Maria Delfina bought the ceramic tiles for the water tank, Margarita Gomez installed pipes for the water and Dora and Miguel bought cement for the floor.
Main goals of the project:
- direct and fair trade with small-sized farmers
- supporting women farmers (Aranjuez Women Project) (material, know-how)
- education of the farmers (cupping trainings, processing experiments etc.)
- implementation of environmentally friendly methods (parchment used for seedlings, bees & insect balance, less usage of water with natural processes etc.)
- processing unique microlots
- long term relationships with farmers
- day to day communication and harvest planning with farmers
Our future plan is to buy a small farm and build own washing station close to our long term farmer partners. We would like to experiment with organic planting as well as with e.g. different methods of anaerobic fermentations to gain the best coffees. We hope to cooperate also with some local university and develop a platform for coffee research in practice. We would like to support young people to continue farming and adopt the modern management agriculture methods. We are looking for partner roasteries for this project.
Currently, we cooperate with several families including: (u každého prosím prolink na stránku Farmers)
Nelson Lopez, Finca Linda Vista, Women´s project Aranjuez (washed Caturra, 1300 masl)
Margarita & Luis, Finca las Hermanas & El Encanto, El Porvenir (washed Caturra, 1400 masl)
Carmela Lopez, Finca El Pino, Women´s project Aranjuez (washed Caturra, 1300 masl)
Salomón Chavarría, El Tabaco community, El Cuá (natural Sarchimor, 1050 masl)
Norlan Chavarría, El Tabaco community, El Cuá (natural Sarchimor, 1050 masl)
Instagram: @coffeeembassy.nica
Facebook: @coffeeembassy.eu
