Tanzania Blackburn Estate - Water
Michael from the Blackburn Estate in Tanzania has just sent us some nice shots of their new water reservoirs on the farm. One of their annual challenges is having sufficient water resources for both irrigation of the coffee trees and for the wet processing of the coffee - and Michael reports very low rains this year. This has been countered through the development of bigger reservoirs to catch this vital water when it is available, and ensure the best quality of processing at harvest time.
Traditional methods of washing coffee - in essence done to separate the coffee beans from the rest of the fruit - can use significant amounts of water and act as a drain on local resources, but on the Blackburn Estate they use water as sparingly as possible and carefully monitor it. Modern processing equipment like that used here can operate on much less water than was traditionally required and by also investing in larger reservoirs, they are doing all they can on the Estate to minimise the impact on local water resources.
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