Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
Issue link: http://freshcup.epubxp.com/i/43236
( T "Small Farmer, Big Plans" is a series track- ing a year in the life of Honduran farmer Antonio "Toñi- to" Ponce Bautista as he attempts to bring his coffee to the specialty market for the first time, with the help of rural development organization Unión MicroFinanza (UMF). ) o an outsider, life in San Carlos may bring to mind the movie "Groundhog Day." Every day at 5 a.m., the same rooster crows with the first rays of sun, and the town's residents awaken. Breakfast consists of a plate of beans, tortillas and eggs—identical to the plate from the day before. The women are already up, having cooked these delicacies so their flannelled and jeaned men can grab machetes and hike to fields both near and far with stomachs full. These fields bear the same crops that have been produced for generations: beans, corn and coffee. Back at home, women head out to collect water from the village's single faucet as children once again set off to learn in a schoolhouse where six different grades gather around one teacher. It's only on closer inspection that one notices that things are constantly, if slowly, changing. In the heart of San Carlos, Toñito points to the spot where the wooden house he grew up in used to sit. This is the house his grandfather built when he came to the village. Now in its place is a more modern—but still rustic-seeming—mud-brick dwelling. In the center of town sits a large shade tree, a relic also left by Toñito's grandfather. While the house has been upgraded, the tree remains, with roots grown thick and healthy. In this vain, Toñito is hoping to move his farm forward. He is instituting agronomy practices based in science and aimed at higher yields and prices. But he's simultaneously making efforts to increase the strength and viability of San Carlos' land, the deli- cate fields so vital to the village's past and future. THE EVOLUTION OF THE FARM Toñito has used the same two fertilizers his entire life: 12-24- 12 and Urea. Fertilizer accounts for the largest single cost farmers face throughout the year, and it's often prohibitively expensive to purchase during the non-harvest season. Farmers around San Carlos are relatively fortunate compared to many other producers: Local intermediaries make fertilizer available on loan. But this fertilizer, necessary for the production of cof- fee, comes at a high price. Forced to sign high-interest contracts with the intermediaries, farmers give up their option to sell cof- fee to anyone else and remain stuck receiving whatever price the intermediary deems appropriate. But the situation is changing this year. Through his micro-loan with UMF, Toñito received 12 bags of fertilizer. He is excited to be moving away from the fixed- contract loans and is hopeful about improvements that his new situation opens up. Among other changes, he is tailoring fertilizer to suit his land; with the help of UMF, Toñito's farm recently underwent a soil analysis, becoming the first property in the area to do so. "It's not that we didn't want to, but we've never had the opportunity before," Toñito says. The analysis will identify which nutrients occur naturally in the soil, and he will then choose a combination of fertilizers containing complementary nutrients. Proper fertil- ization will increase Toñito's yield, of course, but as he tries to produce a specialty coffee for export for the first time in his life, continued on page 48 freshcup.com October 2011 47 F r esh Cup