Overview

Fazenda Santa Lucia belongs to the SERTÃO GROUP. The farm's geographical location, altitude and climate make it a regional reference, as one of the farms with the highest annual rainfalls. In addition to specialty coffees, the Sertão Group raises Girolando cattle. The group is the owner of the prestigious brand "GIROLANDO DA SERTÃO", symbol of the best national cattle raiser of this breed (www.gruposertao.com.br).

Twenty-five families with approximately 80 people live at the farm in houses assigned to the employees at no cost, all with running water and electricity, and where they receive in addition to their salaries which are above the Brazilian minimum wage, milk, coffee, transportation and medicines. The farm has a municipal public school and also takes part in the Family Health Program maintained by the government. There is a telephone line for the employees, a soccer field and a lake for fishing. Helcio Carneiro Pinto is a member of APROCAM, an association that gives priority to improving the quality of specialty coffees and their commercialization (www.aprocam.com.br), and is a member of COCARIVE (www.cocarive.com.br).

Coffee processing system

Coffee is picked manually on cloth to avoid the contact of the beans with the soil; the beans are transported to be dried twice a day, where they are washed, pulped and spread out on the same day. Subsequently they are sent to the drier and then to the bins to rest; they return to the driers and at 10.5% humidity they are placed in the permanent bins to rest for 30 days, and lastly they are processed and then deposited in the Cooperative, where they are finally classified according to their standard. Coffee is washed and pulped according to the water recycling and rational use method, the residues are transferred to the decanting tanks and then the water is used in the plantations.

Concern with quality

Fazenda Santa Lucia, of the Sertão Group has a modern infrastructure, with leading edge equipment and improvements. Following the philosophy of continually enhancing the quality of the coffees produced at the farm, visits are made to various national and international entities, and experiences are exchanged with other producers for coffees to reach high quality standards. All lots are constantly cupped and supervised. The Sertão Group opted to produce specialty coffees, which demand plenty of attention from the producer. Traceability is indispensable not only to understand the property and its products but also to arrive at a decision concerning to replace or not to replace a plantation and to choose the varieties that will be planted.