2004 News From The Farm

Find in our 2004 newsletters:

-Rain on the coffee farm (May)
-March 2004 trip to Honduras (March)
-Shade grown coffee (March)
-Meet our coffee farmers (March)

May 2004
All this rain we've been having lately reminds Guillermo of his days growing up on the coffee farm in Honduras. The other day, he was reminiscing about going out to fetch the milk cows in the morning and coming back all wet to warm up around the kitchen stove while his mom and sisters made tortillas. The news from Guillermo's Dad is that it has been raining a lot lately on the coffee farm too.

Thank you for your purchases and your referrals. We're especially grateful this month, as we've been able to use proceeds from coffee sales to help several family members in Honduras pay for emergency medical treatments. Muchas Gracias!

March 2004
Our trip to Honduras couldn't have come at a better time. When we left Minnesota on January 29th, it was -22. When we landed in San Pedro Sula, Honduras it was a steamy 85. (Goodbye snow boots, hats and gloves. Hello tank-tops, shorts and sandles!)

On the coffee farm, most of the rainy days of "winter" had passed and we were blessed with wonderful weather. Except for 2 rainy days, it was 80's during the day with cooler sweatshirt weather in the evening and early morning. We enjoyed many clear evening skies, the first week with a bright full moon and the next with amazing stars. Our boys and their cousins built several bonfires.

With the end of the rainy season, comes the end of the coffee harvest too. Most of the coffee was already picked when we arrived, but we had a chance to get a few pictures of how the coffee is processed. Guillermo's family was very excited to hear how well their coffee is selling here. It gives them a great deal of hope to continue in the coffee business, when many others are getting out due to continued poor prices on the open market. They have been"wowed" by our coffee payments that are 10 times what they would normally get and more than double the minimum for fair trade. It is a great deal of fun to be able to support the family this way.

We are currently getting coffee from four different family members, Guillermo's father Maximo, his brother Sabel, his brother Abilio, and his brother-in-law Alonzo. All continue to be committed to growing organically and using environmentally sound practices, even though it means additional labor and risk. Their coffee is grown under shade trees. "Shade grown" coffee reduces erosion, provides valuable bird habitat and maintains critical tree cover which plays a key role in the water making capacity of the cloud forest. The shade is also, interestingly enough, better for the coffee in many ways because it requires less fertilizer and is more protected from the cold during the rainy winter months. We saw a clear example of this in a small field of coffee that was planted a few years back in an open pasture that has little shade. The leaves were mostly yellow, spotted or gone completely. Using lots of chemical fertlizers, this "sun coffee" might have done better, but in an organic operation it will be hard to restore this coffee to full production.