Sunday, November 2, 2008

Nueva Alianza Organic Coffee Farm

A couple weeks back (yeah, I haven't been so consistent with blogging lately) we visited an organic coffee farm about 2 hours from Quetzaltenango called Nueva Alianza. The farm is run by 40 families who have worked on the farm for decades but have only recently taken control of the place themselves after their former boss barkrupted the farm. Soon they must begin paying back 1.5 million that they were loaned to form their cooperative and buy the farm, so they have been scrambling in recent years to increase production, put the organic stamp on their coffee and macadamia nuts, and improve quality (to get a better price for their product). So far, they have managed to get their macadamias to a "gourmet" rating, with the coffee one step below. Not only that, they have solicited and received grants from numerous national and international organizations that they have used to begin self-sustainable, income-producing, and non-polluting projects within the lands of the farm itself. These include water purification facilities to bottle and sell pure water, a hydroelectric power facility, a bamboo furniture-making business, and their own small biodiesel production center for the community vehicles. It's actually pretting amazing what they have invested in and how smart they have been, not only in regards to reducing their environmental impact, but in planning for their own self-sustainability in the long term.

My favorite part of the trip was our hike to the large waterfall on the farm property. We climbed way up into it and it was the most fun I had had up to that point in the trip.

Biodiesel Production

Sunset from the "Hotel Agro-Ecoturistico"

The shelling, sorting and rinsing of the coffee beans

Coffee bean vat. Bad beans float.

Me picking coffee

James and I in the big waterfall

Crazy kids!

Me, Kira

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