Finding the Right Blend: Coffee farmer looks to make his coffee more sustainable

Written by Jason Houston, photojournalist

On the last day of my visit to Nueva Cajamarca, Peru, I hiked for three and a half hours, uphill, in the mud and humidity, carrying all my camera gear, into the Alto Mayo forests to visit the small farming community of Escondida. There are no roads to get there, only the well-worn but narrow foot trail studded with horse and donkey prints.

I met with Don Filomon Delgado, a coffee farmer and local environmental secretary for the region. Don Filomon’s farm was the first I reached hiking up the valley. Cut from the forests on the hillside above the river, he farms about 60 hectares of mostly coffee. He has been on this land for over two decades and his farm is a perfect candidate for receiving environmental improvement funds established through Rare Conservation Fellow Rina Gamarra’s campaign. He is sympathetic to using more sustainable practices and understands the larger concerns around the health of the watershed. Yet, as is the reality in most of these cases, he simply does not have the resources to do much more — certainly not to do things like reforesting his land and converting from sun-grown to shade-grown coffee.

Most coffee in the region is sun-grown in open fields clear-cut from the surrounding forests.

Sun-grown coffee is also more susceptible to disease and infection. Many of Don Filomon’s plants were suffering from a beetle blight causing light spots on the leaves.

Farmers like Don Filomon Delgado work hard to survive off the land — and their survival relies on a healthy, productive environment. Don Filomon knows this, and with a little help from the water funds collected in Nueva Cajamarca down stream, will be able to implement a number of more sustainable practices.

Links:

• Rare Website