Guatemala Coffee Story Guatemala Antigua Coffee Story Guatemalan Coffee experiment

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Report on the trip to Guatemala

It's not easy to be a coffee farmer. Almost every task faces a number of challenges, from the complex logistics process of deciding which plant to grow, to obtaining fertilizer, to delivering coffee to buyers. As a coffee roaster that invests directly in our partner importers, our goal is to support every step of our partners. So I couldn't resist the opportunity when farmers at the Manos Farm (Manos Campesinas) in Guatemala invited cooperative coffee roasters to taste and evaluate the results of some of their experimental planting three years ago.

Coffee from Guatemala is our third largest coffee producer and can be found in several products (Justice, Mayan Magic espresso, safe Channel (Safe Passage) and medium roasted coffee in San Marcos, Guatemala). The concentration and quality of this coffee make it a versatile and popular product. Three years ago, Manos Campesinas, an umbrella exporter from several production cooperatives in Guatemala, was spurred by the massive damage caused by La Roya (coffee leaf rust or fungus) to many farmers. The farmers are looking for a solution. Manos wants to help, but he hasn't found a good answer yet. As a result, they began an extensive research project to determine which coffee varieties are most resistant to disease, perform best at elevations (because their farms are between 1300 and 1800 meters above sea level), and use different organic fertilization treatments. They want to measure quality, yield and resistance to La Roya and Ojo de Gallo, another fungus. Both diseases can destroy entire coffee crops, thereby significantly reducing yield and quality. Manos's technical consultants developed a way to conduct the experiment and collected data from the past two years to recruit and train farmers to provide experimental land on their farms.

This pilot planting project is funded by Cooperative Coffee, Equal Exchange and several other independent roasters purchased from Manos Campesinas. (the Highland project contributes to the Cooperative Coffee resilience Fund (Cooperative Coffees'Resilience Fund), which is used to support projects like this.) We have bought coffee from them for more than ten years, but this is the first time I have had the opportunity to visit them in person. After three years of careful care of these plants and a great deal of data collection, the first harvest is ready to be roasted and tasted.

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