Fazenda Santa Inês was received the first award and the Special Prize – 2005 Gold Cup of Excellence, with a record mark of 95.85 points (in a scale from zero to 100), the highest ever registered in the 22 competitions already held in the countries that are enrolled in the Cup of Excellence, which was created in Brazil in 1999 and, from 2003 onwards adopted by El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Bolivia and Colombia.

The Santa Inês, São Benedito and São José farms belong to the Sertão Group, and were the first three finalists in the 2005 Cup of Excellence edition – a record that will remain in the history of the competition and of the Group.

The property is located in the Municipality of Carmo de Minas in the State of Minas Gerais part of the Mantiqueira Mountain Range, within an area known as Mineral Spring Waters Circuit. Further to coffee plantations, the owner raises cattle of the Girolando Breed in the farm, considered the best in Brazil.

Grupo Sertão is highly concerned with preserving the environment; therefore, large areas of native rain forests are preserved in the farm, as well as water sources, and riparian woods that protect the creeks.

Houses were built in the property to lodge its 35 employees, all registered according to Brazilian employment and labor laws, and their 13 families, a total of approximately 80 people. The houses have infrastructure, such as running water, electricity and sewage. Furthermore, the families receive, in addition to employees’ salaries, milk, coffee, medicines and other benefits. Children and teenagers have a bus line that stops at the entrance of the Farm several times a day, taking them to school at no cost.

The property has soccer fields, sand court and quoit court, for the workers and their families to practice sports. The farm is enrolled in the Family Health Program of the government, and has a telephone line for the employees.

Coffee processing system

Because of its topography, all the coffee in Fazenda Santa Inês is hand picked on cloth to avoid that the coffee touches the soil. The harvested coffee is transferred from the plantations to the processing structure twice a day, where it is washed, pulped and then the beans are spread on the terraces on that same day. To preserve the environment, water used during the washing and pulping phases go through a recycling system, where the residues are transferred to decantation tanks, therefore allowing a better use of this precious resource.

The beans are placed in driers and subsequently are stored in bins to rest. They return to the driers until they reach the adequate 10.5% humidity. After this process, they are stored again in bins for 30 days, to rest.

Lastly, they are deposited in the Cooperative, where they receive their final standard classification. Each lot is traceable from the moment it was planted to the time it was stored, because all production processes are recorded.

Concern with quality

The Sertão Group produces Arabica coffees of very high quality that reflect their love for their work and for coffee cultivation that is already in the fourth generation of the family. With a cutting edge infrastructure, equipment and improvements, the Group is following the philosophy of continuously improving quality and control of the coffees it produces, with the purpose of offering coffees with distinct flavors and tastes to the population in general.

Since 2002 the Sertão Group farms have been receiving national awards from BSCA and Illy, demonstrating the results of their work for the whole micro-region of Carmo de Minas.

Francisco Isidro Dias Pereira is a member of APROCAM, an association that gives priority to specialty coffees production (www.aprocam.com.br), and a member of the COCARIVE Cooperative.