pacamaracatuai-blog

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I don’t update much anymore since leaving Ecuador to return to the US, but I love this too much not to share. Our 28,000 little seedlings look so beautiful and I am so proud of Asociación Mujeres de Chaucha! Bien hecho, compañeras.

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I snagged this photo from Allie’s Instagram! Even though I’m not in Chaucha and I’m heading back to the US this week, I’m over the moon with happiness to hear that our little seeds are sprouting in Ecuador. The work goes on without me and it is a lot of work! The women are working on selling their produce in Cuenca, bagging thousands of seedlings with compost along with local students, and drumming up more interest in the coffee project. Hopefully these little seedlings will be the start of many new beginnings for the farmers of Chaucha.

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What an incredible six months it has been! I am so proud of what we have been able to accomplish together in Chaucha. Here are some of our before and after pictures plus some details on the future of the women’s coffee project.

-We finished most of the work on the acopio (the building’s water is going in soon!) and completed our first small harvest in the new building. Check out the before and after photos of the acopio; the “after” photo has a cement floor and fermentation tanks, stairs, gutters, a sign, windows, and doors, not to mention interior walls, sinks, and countertops!

-I trained a quality control coordinator and agricultural technical assistant, Maria, who has stepped up and become an important resource for the group and the producers of Chaucha. We began a soil testing program, created a traceability system, and I taught her cupping and sample roasting skills so she can monitor the coffee quality.

-We set up a new nursery plus a satellite nursery and sowed 28,000 super high quality plants. The second set of photos is the before and after of Zhin Alto’s satellite nursery, which will distribute 4,000 Típica Mejorado plants to these improverished farmers and help them transform their local economy.

-The Chain Collaborative team gave trainings to the association’s directiva on accounting, email, and record-keeping, and to the whole group on processing and traceability.

-We developed plans for short, medium, and long term work that involve selling various local products across Ecuador and creating a profitable business with the sale of high quality lots of coffee processed at the acopio (once the current seedlings begin producing in 3 years). This critical step will help the women earn more money for their hard work, sooner!

-And in the third set of photos you can see the compost shed we recently completed! The women are collecting organic compost locally and carefully preparing it. This will help the new plants thrive while ensuring that the women follow environmentally sound practices that will enrich Chaucha’s soils without causing harm.

I want to give a huge thank you to every one of the women in the Asociación Mujeres de Chaucha (AMC) who worked with me this year; to The Chain Collaborative and its team of awesome volunteers and development experts; plus an extra shoutout to Martha and Tony Camp for hosting me this year with such hospitality; and everyone who donated their time and expertise to help the women achieve new levels of success this year. Here’s to a bright and exciting future for Chaucha and AMC!

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My very last day in Chaucha marks the end of a long journey for me. And it was a packed day, of course. We started with a quality control and traceability overview, to explain how these two systems can work together to improve the coffee and the prices the women receive. Not only did we cup their coffee, we also brewed French presses for them to taste alongside the cupping. Then we worked on the plans for the future and other products; the women are planning on joining a circuit of rural growers supplying high quality products to city restaurants. (With luck this will improve their incomes and also provide some options for good, sustainable shade for their coffee!)

We capped off the day with a barbecue and farewell party, complete with piñata and party games. It was an absolutely heartfelt goodbye and it was so sweet! I will miss every one of the women in the group, and the team from The Chain Collaborative (Nora, Allie, and Martha) too; these women have become my colleagues and friends this year during the hard work on this project.

Enjoy these pictures from the big day, including one of my thank you letters from Sra. Elsa, and a great shot of me, Maria, and Allie!

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After a whirlwind week, we arrived at the final day of my stay in Loja and the results of the contest plus the big auction. The photo is a group shot of the producers of the top ten lots and the contest organizers. Manuel, on the far left in the white shirt, won top honors with first and second place. Second place was a washed Gesha and first place was a stunning honey processed Gesha that revived 88.92 points averaged from all the judges. (It sold for over $17.00/lb!) This coffee’s floral and tropical fruit notes coupled with a brilliant acidity and sweetness made it a real standout on the table.

It wasn’t a normal auction, though. There was audible strife in the room when producers got upset that buyers weren’t bidding on every lot or paying prices as high as expected. The coffee world is beyond complicated; right now there’s a coffee price crisis in the world with some farmers not even earning enough to cover their costs of production. The futures price of coffee is to blame, as it recently plunged to less than $1/lb. Other farmers cover their basic needs but clearly feel like they are underpaid and the quality of their product goes unrewaded - that $4.50 per pound for an 87 point coffee is unfairly low.

It was an honor to be part of the contest and auction judging team, but after the final lot was sold, my real takeaway was that the best and most satisfying transactions in coffee are based on long-term partnerships with strong communication and a vision to grow together. The weakness of the auction model is that it doesn’t allow for much communication to happen between buyer and seller. But regardless, the work of these producers has yielded fantastic results of which they can be proud.

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Week two, cupping the high scorers from last week! Here’s the judging panel and Miguel, the contest coordinator. The highest scorers after judging will enter the auction on Friday. Lots of red fruit, tropical fruit, and notes of caramelization in the remaining contenders, absolutely delicious.

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I was very excited to be invited to be one of the five judges for the Mejor de Loja Coffee Contest and Auction in the city of Loja, Ecuador. So far we have tasted some extraordinary coffees that are great representatives of the profile that Loja is famous for. And as a bonus I get to explore the charming city of Loja!

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Not the most glamorous work but very important! I’m working with María during my final weeks here to help her identify defects, both in the cup and in samples of green beans. I was gifted some bags of defects which I used to create these defective samples, which I’ll use to test her sorting skills. I’m hoping this skill will help her pinpoint problems and potential problems in lots of the association’s coffee!

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Traceability is something a little tricky to explain to the women in the association. After all, lots of the stuff they buy in Chaucha comes from their neighbors and is therefore totally traceable, but having a system of traceability to track coffee quality and all lot information is something unheard of in Chaucha in my experience.

But they now understand that not only is it important to differentiate lots based on quality, it’s also critical to keep records of information about producers and their farms attached to the lot information. Why? Buyers want to know this information and they’ll pay for it! Traceability actually is part of what makes high-priced coffee so valuable.

So we started from scratch, making labels for the coffee to follow the lot through the system so we know which coffee is which. (That’s photo one.) The label information is written on a corresponding lot data sheet where more detailed farm information, fermentation and drying data, and quality notes are added (that’s what Maria’s up to in photo 2). This information is also put into a digital database for quick access and to make the data searchable.

This year’s very small harvest is a pretty good trial run; Maria and I have been improving and developing the system together with the intention of scaling it way up next year! I hope this system helps the women transfer important information throughout their supply chain and improve the value of their coffee for years to come.

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I can’t believe how great the new germination bed in Zhin Alto looks! We sowed 4,000 Típica Mejorado seeds today, and it really represents a new beginning for the coffee project in Zhin Alto. Herlinda, Julia, Juan, and Gonzalo have stepped up as leaders of the project and we hope that others will follow their footsteps as they see the success of the group. And Maria has been an awesome and committed leader through the whole process. I will likely be back in the US by the time the baby plants sprout (they call them fósforos or “matches” when they’re tiny) but I hope to keep up with their progress from afar.

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What do you do on your days off in the coffeelands of South America? When I’m not working with the women in the acopio or visiting communities with María and the TCC team, you can find me picking coffee at Hacienda Santa Marta! Here Martha and Tony do a careful natural process on their coffee, and it gives a delicious result.

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I’m so proud of the women in the association. One of the socias, a hard worker who is one of the less educated women in the group, has come on hard times and nearly had to leave the group because she couldn’t pay the $1 monthly fee.

The women decided to pay out of their pockets to hire this woman and some of her family members to clear their coffee field. They’ll earn $150 and the huge task of rennovating their field to prepare for shade and compost will be much easier! I’m proud of the group for making it possible for members who struggle financially to continue participating in a meaningful way and improve their income too.

In the photo, the field underneath the small forest is the part that has been cleared. It looks great!

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Ivan of Caravela Coffee came to visit Chaucha recently and we learned so much from him! The photos show him teaching us about plant health and him leading a quick training on best nursery practices in Zhin Alto.

I loved hearing his explanation of soil science to the people of Zhin Alto. He used the analogy of a zancocho soup (a mishmash soup with lots of delicious local ingredients). Macronutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus are like the most important elements in zancocho - yucca and potato, for example. And micronutrients are like salt and spices, required in small quantities but critical for the dish. As for pH, we have to measure it because it is like a padlock that can prevent the plant from being about to access the food present in the soil if it’s too acidic or basic. Fascinating and engaging for the entire audience of campesinos and volunteers alike!

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Check out our photos from the minga (collective workday). We built germination beds, filled them with sand, and sowed more Bourbon Sidra seeds! Then we bought forty pounds of coffee from a woman from Coca, and I led a workshop on how to use their new fermentation tanks and a review of best postharvest practices. And Allie led their first business planning session! We are all exhausted but excited for big things ahead.

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Another day, another challenge. This photo shows Allie and I helping Maria with soil tests at the demonstration garden today. The soil seems to be deficient in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, the main ingredients in successful farming and gardening. But now that we have the knowledge about the soil we have the information we need to begin bringing in compost that will improve the soil and help our delicate Bourbon Sidra plants get the nutrients they need!

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It took a little longer than anticipated but our nursery and seed germination area are finally up and running! Young coffee plants require lots of shade, hence the shadecloth, and the actual beds where seeds germinate require a second thicker roof of shade under the shadecloth. We have 8,000 baby Bourbon Sidra plants hopefully getting ready to sprout under there - and more on the way soon!

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Busy day! Maria, Allie and I checked up on the women’s coffee at the center. Their first processing day of the year was tiny (because of the very low production this year) but it’s clear they’ve learned a lot: they separated the lots and kept the high quality coffee separate from the strip harvested coffee (with unripe and dry cherries mixed in!). Then the three of us worked on the seed germination area, making sure there was a deep bed of sand for the seed; and we sowed the seeds José donated to us! It was a long day and we are hoping that our little ones grow into happy and healthy Bourbon Sidra trees. If all goes well; these little seeds will produce a small harvest in three years and then large harvests in year four. They need to be pampered as seeds, with plenty of water and lots of shade (shadecloth is coming this week!).