Lote Leonardo - Colombia 2015 Verified listing

CoE 2015 Ranking: 23

Farm: LoteLeonardo (Plot)

Farmer: Édgar Yony Melo Gómez

Birth Place & Date: Buesaco, Nariño. August 31, 1967

Age: 47

Parents: Remigio Rafael Melo Bastidas – María Mercedes Gómez

Siblings: 5

Wife’s Name: Yubely Ramírez Cruz

Children: 1

Academic Level: High School

Farm: LoteLeonardo (Plot)

Vereda (Rural District): Guadinosa

Corregimiento (Municipal Subdivision): Bruselas

Municipality: Pitalito

Department: Huila

Total Area Grown with Coffee: 0.89 ha

% planted with resistant varieties (Colombia y Castillo): 0%

% planted with susceptible varieties (Caturra): 100%

% of Young Technologically Advanced Coffee Plantations: 100%

Other farm crops: NO

Post-harvest processing (“beneficio”): Traditional

Score at Cup of Excellence 2015: 85.93

Farmer’s Biography:

I was born on August 31, 1967 in Buesaco, Nariño.  I’m coffee grower since 1989, when I was 22 years old. My father gave us a piece of land and there I planted my first 5,000 coffee trees of the Colombia variety. In 1993 my parents moved to live in the “vereda” (rural district) of Guandinosa, in the municipality of Pitalito, Huila, and the first thing I did was buying, along with a brother, 1.75 hectares of coffee. In 1993 I met the most important woman in my life and a year later we were married and started working together in coffee farming.

Now we have a 16-year-old son, who already finished high school and is studying a technological career, specializing in coffee farming and ecology, in the National Learning Service (Sena). As our farm is very close to the village, we have bought a house there and live there now.

Every day I go to the farm, located 5 minutes from the village, to work in coffee growing. I'm experimenting every day to improve quality of the product I take to the cooperative, to be paid the best price.

I think that quality of the product I bring to the market is due to the love we put into growing, the consistency for each process, especially in harvesting, fermenting and drying in the sun.

I want to continue producing high-quality coffee, with consistency in the cup, in addition to continue taking part in contests where I can show my product, until one day I may have a direct purchaser, with the support by the Colombia n Coffee Growers Federation, to market it more sustainably.