Overview

FAZENDA DO SERTÃO was the first farm of the group, and the reason for its name - SERTÃO GROUP. With over 100 years of coffee tradition, the farm was a pioneer in coffee plantation in the municipality of Carmo de Minas. This farm is a regional reference as one of the farms with very high annual rainfalls due to its geographical localization and altitude. In addition to their specialty coffees, the Sertão Group raises Girolando cattle. The group is responsible for a well-known brand, the GIROLANDO DA SERTÃO [SERTAO's GIROLANDO cattle], symbol of the best Brazilian cattle raiser of the Girolando breed (www.gruposertao.com.br).

Thirty-four families reside in the farm, a total of approximately 145 people, in houses assigned by the farm at no cost to its employees, all with running water and electricity, where they receive a salary above the Brazilian minimum wage, milk, coffee, transportation and medicine. In the farm there is a municipal public school, and it is also enrolled in the government Family Health Program. There is a phone line for the employees, a soccer field for them to practice sports and a reservoir where they can fish. Nazareth Dias Pereira is a member of APROCAM, an association that gives priority to improving specialty coffees quality and commercialization (www.aprocam.com.br), and a member of COCARIVE (www.cocarive.com.br).

Coffee processing system

Coffee is harvested manually and on cloth to avoid that the beans touch the soil; the beans are transported twice a day to the drying area where they are washed, pulped and spread out on the same day. After that they are transferred to the drier, and then to bins to rest. They return to the drier and at 10.5% humidity are transferred to the permanent bins to rest for 30 days and lastly they are processed at the Cooperative (COCARIVE) where they receive their final standard classification.

Coffee is washed and pulped using the water recycling and rational use method; the residues are transferred to decantation tanks and afterwards return to the plantation.

Concern with quality

Fazenda do Sertão, of the Sertão Group, has a modern infrastructure with leading edge improvements in the area. Following the philosophy of continuously enhancing the quality of the coffees produced at the farm, frequent visit are made to various national and international entities, and experiences are exchanged with other producers seeking higher quality standards for its coffees. All coffee lots are cupped and monitored year after year. The choice of producing specialty coffees demands plenty of attention and dedication from the producer. Traceability is indispensable not only to understand the properties of the product but also to arrive at decisions to replace a plantation and to choose the varieties that will be planted.

IT IS THE SIXTH TIME THAT FAZENDA DO SERTÃO IS A CUP OF EXCELLENCE CONTEST FINALIST.