Marco Fidel Rodriguez is a farmer in Filo de Chillurco, in the Huila region of Colombia.
He’s recently moved to selling his coffee to the specialty market, and is being rewarded with higher prices to reflect the quality.
He’s reinvested this money into further improving his farm, building himself a new secadero (parabolic drier) to handle large volumes. Previously he would run out of room and have to abandon a lot and sell it to the local cooperative wet, at a lower price.
An example of a parabolic drying bed
Parabolic drying beds are common in Colombia for high quality producers. Despite the fancy name, they’re essentially a curved cover over the drying beds, similar to a greenhouse.
This year he will renovate his wet mill, build bigger tanks and buy a refractometer to measure the sugar levels during fermentation to improve the quality of his lots and reduce the risk of having coffees rejected for over fermentation.
It’s great seeing farmers not just rewarded for producing high quality coffee, but also seeing them keep working to further improve.
Explore Colombia
Aaron Frey has a great post on his site FRSHGRND about visiting a farm in Colombia that’s worth checking out: Part one covers things at the farm and harvesting, and part two picks up with processing.
