Santa Clara

Raul cultivates coffee since he turn 20 years of age, by then he already have worked in a cooperative and saw that was the thing to do, economically and satisfactory speaking. since then coffee has become a way of living for him and his family. That farm has 2 permanent workers and up to 30 in harvest season.

Raul fertilizes upon soil test results, in the middle of June. He does his farm's weed control by hand, applies tree pruning, with selective and sanitary purposes, also regulates shade. he does a very active sampling for plagues and pest, and uses the Integrated method of control for plagues. His harvest starts in December until the end of April sometimes, collecting only the red cherries, her pickers do the picking along with people from the community. then he moves his crop using a pick up truck to wet mill, taking him approximately 15 minutes . The pulper work without water, so the process is using the less water possible from a protected water source coming from a near by stream. Fermentation takes place in cement tanks, an average of 12 hours, prior a mechanical mucilage removal, under close supervision, depending on the weather and moisture.

Then the coffee is taken into cement patios of the exporter to dry , and then is placed into guardiola dryers, if the weather doesn't help. He says his success lays in picking only the red cherries, implementing a good nutrition plan for the coffee trees. He and his family and workers are aware of the protection of the environment and give the proper process to pulp and residue waters. Actually coffee production doesn't give enough yield for maintaining the necessary family income, specially fertilizers prices. This also affects the workers because he is not able to give them much paid work.