Nombre De Dios - El Salvador 2008 Verified listing

Overview

Nombre de Dios farm is located at the highlands of Alotepec-Metapan Mountain Range at some 1,500 meters above sea level, between the towns of Metapan, Santa Ana and Citala, Chalatenango. The history of this farm goes back to the early twentieth century, when Samuel Luna had a vision for progress and development for the Metapan area. Nombre de Dios San Juan, a fraction of the original “Hacienda San Miguel Ingenio y El Pinar”, is a legacy planted by grandfather, Juan Ramon Calderon in the 60’s. Since 2002, Nombre de Dios is run by Maria Elena and her two sisters, fourth generation coffee growers; who foresaw an opportunity for the coffee industry despite the world coffee price crisis. All three sisters’ families work as a team. Maria Elena’s administrative work is supported by her husband Salvador and her son Javier, who lead the cultural practices at the farms. The family is deeply involved in the business plan for Nombre de Dios. And they are working in diversification and coffee quality improvement. Cultural practices such as pruning, weed control and fertilization after soil analysis results are carefully carried out on this shaded coffee farm. Broca (Coffee Berry Borer) is controlled with traps. Taking care of a coffee nursery is one permanent activity. Nowadays, they have begun to test organic fertilizers based on mill by-products and sea weeds. New nurseries are also part of their activities. These activities employ 10 workers from March through September. At harvest, December to February the number of workers increases to 90. The growth and development of the community is a priority for the family; they donated land where a school, a clinic, a foot-ball field and a church were built. Since the year 2000 electricity is also available for the community. They also took some steps to get computers for the school though a program from USAID, CARE and the Agriculture Ministry. Special emphasis is also placed to keep the environment and so they recently donated trees to reforest the school surroundings. Crop 2008-2009 was washed with clean water, sun dried at the “Beneficio Alotepeque”. An eco friendly mill that uses less water and is energy saving. Cup of Excellence® motivated employees at the mill to have better controls of the wet process and coffee pickers are enthusiastic to know that their additional effort is also rewarded by better wages. For them, COE left a tremendous learning experience in correct processing which they have been improving by setting more control points throughout the wet and dry milling. Nombre de Dios won COE in 2005, 2007 and 2008, and this allowed them to attract interest from buyers, and also develop other projects to serve the local market with processed coffee. Maria Elena and her family strongly believe that COE has allowed them and the country to regain origin recognition in the Coffee World Market. They are fully motivated to continue improving quality and productivity, and specialize in top quality coffee production.