Shade Grown Coffee: A Journey to Peru

A Four Part Series Chronicling Arbor Day Coffee

Part Three - Sonilda's Coffee Farm

One co-op member that is benefiting from the co-op's infrastructure and processing centers is Sonilda and her family. She is a typical coffee farmer in this jungle area of Peru. Her farm is a little larger than most at about 27 acres of land. But like most other farms in the area she farms on the side of mountain, with trees helping to prevent landslides and other disasters during the rainy season. This co-op strongly believes in trees and organic farming and her farm is no exception. Her coffee is certified both organic and shade grown and because her coffee is certified shade grown she gets an additional $0.33 per kilo of coffee (which is a huge amount when you consider its 2008 per capita income was US $4,452; 36.2% of its total population is poor, including 12.6% that is extremely poor.)

During the harvest season ten other farmers help Sonilda hand pick ripe red or yellow cherries from her 27 acres of land. Can you imagine the time hand picking several hundred cherries off of one plant would take, let alone thousands of plants? The cherries are then bundled into large bags and sent to the co-op's processing centers where trained co-op members insure a uniformed quality coffee will be created. The co-op pays Sonilda for her coffee and the extra income that the co-op gets from the sale of the coffee helps to pay for the infrastructure that she and her family use.

Sonilda's coffee like the rest of the co-op's specialty coffee is rated as some of the best coffee in Peru. It seemed that the quality difference is because the people at the co-op are proud of what they do and take pride in their jobs every step of the way helping to create a better coffee bean. Taste the quality of coffee that comes from hard work and pride.