2009 Ecuador Trip

• Day 3: Alamor and “Natural” Processed Coffee

  Wed 08 July, 2009
  Typical Landscape

  On our final day in Ecuador was spent in Alamor, close to the world famous petrified forest in Puyango. We travelled to a relatively low lying village and this was my first experience with ‘Natural’ processed coffee.

  The natural process means that, instead of the coffee beans being squeezed out of their cherry (pulped) then washed and dried, the cherry with the beans inside is left to dry in the sun. If done correctly this method can produce some excellent coffee, on the other hand it is often used to cover up a multitude problems.

  As we approached the village on a rough road, all around we could see multicoloured cherries (mainly green) drying on flat pieces of earth. This is a classic example of farmers picking anything, whether it is ripe or not, and processing it for a quick sale. 

  Visiting the farms, it is understandable why this happens. There is a relatively short ‘window’ when farmers can pick their crop before the weather changes and the beans start to rot on the trees. With a very limited number of people to pick the coffee and no money to pay others, all a farmer can do is pick what and when he can.

  Coffee dried in its cherry tends to pick up the flavours that are around it, here in Ecuador they do not have any money to lay concrete patios so coffee dries on the earth and takes up the classic earthy taste of a poor quality, naturally processed bean.

  This was a very interesting trip. I learned a...

• Day 2: Chaguarpamba – Bees and Coffee

  Tue 07 July, 2009
  A New Home for the Bees...

  The next day we met Gustavo Mora on his 1 hectare farm in Chaguarpamba, about 110 Km west of Loja. Gustavo is one of a few farmers in the region who have really embraced the Fairtrade system and the help it can provide.

  As we arrived, 6 farmers from the area had gathered to learn how to process honey from wild bees. A bee keeper showed all of us how to encourage bees to live in manmade hives and to maximise their yield – this was a real privilege and shows what can be achieved when surpluses from a cooperative are reinvested in their members.

  The farm was well laid out, clean and organised. Coffee was drying on raised beds and protected from rain by a polytunnel – again this is an innovation in this part of Ecuador. This is a Fairtrade and Organic farm and coffee was growing alongside oranges, papaya and bananas. These crops are both for sale, to supplement Gustavos income, and for family consumption. 

  Gustavo was rightly proud of his farm and had taken a lead in encouraging his neighbours to improve their own farms, it was a great insight into the workings of the Fairtrade Cooperative system.

• Day 1: Fairtrade, Organic and “Bird Friendly” Coffees in Ecuador

  Mon 06 July, 2009
  Harvesting the Cherries

  Our first visit was to the farm of Don Vincente Abad and his wife. Don Vincente owns approximately 1 hectare of land, situated at 1200m above sea level, most of which is covered with coffee trees.

  As he proudly showed us his trees, which had mostly been harvested, I was shocked at how little they seemed to understand about coffee farming. Coffee trees always look miserable when their cherries have just been harvested but it was obvious that these trees were not cared for and were producing very little. Don Vincente produces about 12 ‘quintales’ (100 Lbs weight) per hectare compared with the farmer ‘just up the road’ who is producing 40 per hectare.

  In discussions with him and Roberto it transpired that whilst many of his trees are 40 years old, they have rarely been pruned. This is for 2 reasons; many farmers lack the training and education to know how and when to prune, pruning also means that, during the following year, the tree will not yield any coffee, thus reducing the farmers income. These people are truly subsistence farmers.

  The Fairtrade system is clearly just getting going in this region. Don Vincente told me that, when the market is low, Fairtrade can give him twice the market price. In today’s market however he is selling to middlemen and the cooperative – it simply depends on who will give him the highest price at the time. 

  As we climbed to 1900m we met a second farmer whose farm is...

• Ian Visits Fairtrade-certified Producers in Ecuador, July 2009

  Sun 05 July, 2009
  Patio Dried Coffee

  We have been buying Fairtrade coffee from both Ecuador and Peru for many years and I arranged a visit to see for myself the improvements being made by the Fairtrade system. My specific objectives were to see some Rainforest Alliance certified coffee farms and to understand how the Smithsonian Institute Bird Friendly certification works in practice.

  The first 2 days of our South American trip were spent in Southern Ecuador. The Loja region is a contrasting area of lowland plains rising to the high mountainous region of the northern Andes.

  Our host in Ecuador was Roberto Jimenez, Managing Director of Fapecafes – the central cooperative that controls and processes the coffee supplied by 6 cooperatives spread around Southern Ecuador. He very kindly spent many hours showing us some of the 1600 farms that feed into the cooperative.