Behind La Palma y El Tucán - Part three: Sustainability

THIS BLOG POST IS THE THIRD IN A THREE-PART SERIES. READ PART 1, AND PART 2. 

In Part 1 of this blog series, Nico wrote about La Palma y El Tucán’s (LPET) impressive social impact. In Part 2 he outlined LPET’s rigorous approach to quality. 

In this final blog post, I will tell you about BIODIVERSAL, a new project from the founders of LPET which seeks to support coffee growers and their land by diversifying and marketing their crops. 

Barriers to sustainable coffee production in Colombia

Coffee has been integral to Colombia’s rural economy for decades, but its current model is unsustainable. With the C-Price at an historic low, farmers struggle to cover the cost of their production. For some, it seems if they want to put food on the table their two options are to stay on their farm and grow a more profitable crop, often illicit products like coca, used in the production of cocaine. Alternatively they can head to the city where there are more economic opportunities. 

“As the average age of coffee farmers rises above 60 and their children seek non-farm employment or migrate to cities, the coffee sector will lose its viability,” said Felipe Sardi, cofounder of LPET. 

Additionally the mono-culture farming often practiced today is depleting the soils and requires more and more expensive chemical inputs. 

“We are convinced that coffee alone cannot generate adequate income to enable sustainable progress out of poverty or opportunities for the next generation of farmers,” Felipe said. 

They also see that monocultural coffee production is environmentally damaging, and vulnerable to global warming, which threatens to reduce viable coffee growing land in Latin America by 88% by 2050, according to the SCA. 

Biodiversity is one answer 

Felipe and cofounder, Elisa María Madriñan, see crop diversification as the answer to many of these issues. This involves cultivating other agricultural products in addition to coffee, to give farmers an additional source of income, and reduce the environmental impact of monoculture agriculture. Of course, this is LPET, so rigorous processing to uphold the highest quality in all products is the foundation of their project, giving farmers access to specialty markets for all of their crops. This is the core ideal behind BIODIVERSAL. 

“It brings forward a diverse pool of value-added agricultural products cultivated and sourced in a way that protects the community and the environment,” Felipe explained.  

“In today’s system, farmers have been encouraged, and eventually forced, into producing monocultures. We want to break this cycle. With the collaboration of our neighboring farmers, we will produce, transform, and commercialize value-added products in an array of local and global markets.”  

While this appears simple on paper, it involves great risk for the producer. Many come from a long line of coffee growers, so coffee is the crop they understand. Removing coffee trees and planting alternative crops presents many challenges, they may not know what will grow well on their land, or have access to the market for that agricultural product. 

With BIODIVERSAL, Felipe and Elisa plan to raise capital for the necessary agricultural research and development, to learn the highest standard processing methods, and to find the specialty markets for these new products.  

Crop trials at the BIODIVERSAL experimental farm

Crop trials at the BIODIVERSAL experimental farm

Seeing the immediate impact of biodiversity at the BIODIVERSAL experimental farm in Cundinamarca, Colombia

LEPT will bring their skills in marketing to help farmers find specialty markets for value-added agricultural products

LEPT will bring their skills in marketing to help farmers find specialty markets for value-added agricultural products

Holistic business model

The core idea behind BIODIVERSAL is to generate added value. This means transforming raw materials into something closer to the final product. Felipe noted, this requires a process of “continuous innovation in production, processing, and marketing to establish more direct, relationship-based trade between farmers and consumers in a high-quality agricultural market.”

Farmers involved in the project will benefit from LPET’s experience and expertise in design and marketing. The team intend to focus on the local market first, to reduce the carbon footprint of their products. “While we understand the importance and value of an international market,” Felipe said, “we want to focus on our local niche markets before branching out.”

Felipe refers to the multiple players required to make this business model work as a “symphony of collective efforts.”

Farmers are the production experts and caretakers of our ecosystems. Experienced entrepreneurs and investors bring the capital and experience to create value-added products through investments in technology and innovation. Conscious consumers support the project by seeking quality and the highest standards of ethical and ecological principles in the products they purchase.

THE PILOT PROJECT 

BIODIVERSAL will begin with a pilot project, working with twenty small-scale farms located around LPET´s farm in Cundinamarca, Colombia. The team have already leased a two hectare farm that meets all the characteristics of an average coffee farm in the region. They plan to implement four different BIODIVERSAL farming designs that will include over 24 species in addition to coffee. The results of these experiments will be shared with the local community and farmers. Farms will be divided into four groups, five farms will replicate one design, so that twenty farms can help test all four designs. Sixteen farms have already signed up for the challenge, all of which belong to LPET’s Neighbors & Crops Program. 

Some of the agricultural products that they intend to produce include:

• Coffee

• Pepper

• Inca nuts

• Archira (a local root vegetable used to make flour)

• For shade:

  • Fourteen varieties of trees including Cedar, Chachafruto, Yarumo and Palm

• For essential oil:

  • Lavender

  • Tumeric

  • Rosemary

  • Thyme

  • Citronella

  • Vetiver

• For syrup:

  • Yacon
    
    

Following Colombia’s peace agreement and the withdrawal of FARC guerrillas from many parts of Colombia’s countryside, Felipe and Elisa see an opportunity to bring this new approach to conflict-prone areas. This could help farmers transitioning into legal crops create a more sustainable business model, strengthening peace in one of the world’s largest coffee producing countries. 

Behind La Palma y El Tucán - Part One: Social Impact

This blog post is the first in a three-part series. Read Part 2, and Part 3.

I could probably write a book about La Palma y El Tucán (LPET). Instead I will limit myself to three blog posts.

I was lucky to travel to the LPET farm in August to make the CCS 2018-2019 selection, along with my team mate, CCS Global Buyer, Matt Hassell. Together we went behind the scenes to discover the strategy, science and hard work behind these stunning coffees.

In Part 2 of this blog series I will tell you about the famous processing and the laser focus on quality, and yes, we will review the crazy varietals they grow on their eighteen hectare farm. In Part 3 we will learn about LPET’s plans for increasing biodiversity and protecting farmer incomes with a new project.

Here in Part 1, what I really want to share with you is the positive social impact that the LPET team have on the local coffee growing community.

Let’s start at the beginning

Felipe Sardi and Elisa María Madriñan bought the LPET farm, located at 1600 masl in Cundinamarca, about 2 hours away from Bogota, and planted trees between August and December 2012. They employ 22 permanent workers and 60 to 70 seasonal pickers for the harvest. 

The farm is eighteen hectares, four of which remain wild primary forest. The fourteen hectares in coffee production are separated into five plots: Typica, SL28, Sidra, Geisha and Java. This is the coffee that will become the LPET Estate and Varietals series, including Heroes Series nano-lots of 25kg. Also on the farm is the state-of-the-art LPET processing facility, where they process coffee cherries purchased from neighboring farms for the Neighbors and Crops Series.

The Neighbors and Crops Program:

The goal of the Neighbors and Crops program (N&C) is to produce finely crafted and diverse cups, while simultaneously helping producers with fair revenues. 

To understand the LPET payment structure, you first need to understand how most coffee is bought and sold in Colombia.

A view of the farm from the neighboring mountain

The “FNC” Price

In Colombia, the standard way for producers to sell their coffee is to work with the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros (FNC). Created in the late 1920’s the federation is run by elected members, and boasts over 500,000 members. It is the largest agricultural NGO in the world.

One great reason for producers to join the FNC is their guaranteed purchase scheme. On any day of the year, producers can sell their coffee to the FNC at one of over 500 buying stations around the country. The price offered that day is based on the C-Price, with a differential of around 20% paid by the international market for coffee that meets the FNC’s strict export standards.

How does a producer, or anyone interested, learn the FNC price for a given day? Google “FNC precio café” and you will find this document:

Every week the FNC updates this spreadsheet with the current pricing. For logistical reasons, the price offered will depend on the region. The deeper you travel into the country the lower the price, to account for the logistical costs of transporting the coffee to port.

Let’s take a closer look at the second table.

This table shows the price paid by yield factor, or “factor de rendimiento.” The yield factor is the kilograms of parchment coffee required to obtain 70kg (a standard bag in Colombia) of green coffee. Lower numbers are the goal, it means there is less that is lost in milling.

We see here that for the best yield factor, 89, the price per carga (125kg of parchment) is 834,125 Colombian pesos (COP). With today’s rate it is $263.40 USD, or $2,10 USD/kg of parchment coffee.

The LPET Model

Felipe and Elisa’s goal from the outset was produce the highest possible quality whilst creating a sustainable financial, social and economic model for neighboring coffee producers in Cundinamarca.

The challenges are many. The farmers in their area, about 200 in total, are small holders, most owning one hectare of land or less. With such limited space, it is almost impossible to build a processing facility that will result in high quality coffee. Additionally, the farmers mostly cultivate varieties that are known for their hardiness and disease resistance, but not for their cup quality, specifically Castillo. Plus, the region suffers another major sustainability issue, that is the absence of young coffee producers. Younger generations flock to the cities in search of more stable and profitable livelihoods, leaving an aging population of producers behind.

From the very beginning Felipe and Elisa aimed to create a long-term model that addresses multiple problems with multiple innovative solutions.

Sustaining coffee communities 

When you travel around the LPET Farm and meet the neighboring producers, it is rare to meet a farmer under the age of thirty. The youngest producer I met was Faustino Reyes. He is 60 years old.

Faustino by his processing tanks

His land is adjacent to Dioselina’s farm. Dioselina, who recently passed away, worked together with her neighbor Carmen, who is 83. 

If you ask any farmer in the region about their children, they always say “they live in Bogota, where they have a nice life and a better job.” The new generation don’t want to work on their parent’s farm. Between the low incomes that coffee offers and the close proximity of Bogotá, a large city with more economic opportunities, it’s a no-brainer for the children of coffee producers in Cundinamarca.

The question, of course, is who will produce coffee here in twenty years time?

Producer Carmen, Simon (Sales Representative at LPET) and Edwin (agronomist at LPET).

The late Dioselina on her farm, August 2018, aged 84. We are deeply saddened by the passing of this dedicated coffee producer.

Ensuring timely and selective picking

To ensure selective picking, LPET hire a team of pickers that they train themselves. This both guarantees picking of only the ripe cherries, and delivers pickers to the farms when they are needed.

The proximity to Bogota, and competition with new agricultural production such as industrial flower crops and palm oil plantations, makes it increasingly difficult to find pickers during harvest. Additionally, coffee producers are competing against coca plantations for labor around the country, especially in the south. Coca is the raw material for cocaine, and “raspachines,” or coca leaf pickers, earn much more than coffee pickers.

LPET can guarantee a team of pickers for every producer because they pay exceptionally well. The national average paid for cherry picking is about 450 COP per kilogram (about 14 cents USD). The average fee paid for pickers employed by the LPET Neighbors & Crops Program is around 800 COP per kilo, almost 80% more.

Producers do not have to advance the money to the pickers; LPET subtracts the fee for picking from their payment for the cherries.

State of the art processing

To manage the risks of processing on small lots of land, LPET buy cherries, instead of parchment. This takes much of the work, and the risk, from the producers, allowing them to focus on what they know best: how to produce beautiful and healthy coffee cherries from their land.

Timely transport

When buying cherries, it is essential they are delivered to the wet mill promptly to avoid problems with fermentation. This can be a challenge for producers, who may not have immediate access to the required transport.

LPET solved this problem by employing a fleet of trucks to collect cherries as they are picked and deliver them to the LPET farm for processing in their high-tech facility. This is a cost that LPET cover, saving the farmers time and money.

Faustino’s processing set up

Faustino told me the thing he loves most about working with LPET was the fact that “pickers are coming.” Finding people to pick your coffee cherries when they are perfectly ripe is one of the biggest challenges producers face in this region. “I ask pickers to come next Monday because my cherries will be perfectly ripe, and they tell me yes, but when Monday comes I don’t see them. A lot of my production is damaged because of that,” says Faustino.

Encouraging environmentally sustainable practices

For every kilogram of cherries a producer sells to LPET, they receive 1kg of organic compost, created by LPET’s experienced team of agronomists and chemists. This free organic compost saves producers money, and reduces their reliance on chemical inputs year after year. Plus it improves the quality of the coffee.

Furthermore, from 2019 LPET will provide additional services to their N&C producers through a sister company called BIODIVERSAL. This company will work with the growing community to diversify crops, building environmental resilience and promoting income protection for growers. Stay tuned for Part 3 of this blog series to learn more!

LPET Pricing model 

LPET base the price they pay for cherries on the FNC price. To this they add three potential premiums:

Quality premium = 65% of the base price:
To earn this premium the cherries must pass the quality test. When arriving at the processing facility, Marlon, the Production Manager, measures the number of floaters from a representative sample. Then he removes the under-ripe and over-ripe cherries and calculates the percentage of healthy cherries. Almost all producers get the premium, as it depends mostly on the work of LPET’s own team of trusted pickers.

Loyalty premium = 25% of the base price:
From the second year a producer sells to LPET they receive an additional 25% of the FNC price as a loyalty premium.

Organic premium = 10% of the base price:
LPET don’t demand their producers be certified organic, as certification is an expensive and laborious process, but they do pay a premium if their team of agronomists can verify that the producer is using environmentally sustainable practices on their farm.

As you can see from this chart, LPET producers have the potential to earn double the FNC price. This pricing structure is the heart of LPET´s sustainable mission. With this income stability, LPET hope to encourage the children and grandchildren of coffee growers to remain in the region and dedicate themselves to coffee. With organic premiums, and the gift of organic fertilizer, they hope to sustain the local environment so it can deliver coffee for these next generation coffee growers, and beyond.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the LPET story - how they achieve those dazzling cup profiles!

Carmen and her wild typica trees

Cherries arriving at the LPET farm

New projects

Cupping in the LPET lab

CCS Top Five: Veronika

It's no secret I'm big lover of Panamanian coffees. It is the first origin I visited and my favorite coffee origin to compete with at brewing competitions, because of my personal connection to this country. So my Top Five consists mostly of Panama, but there are some surprises from Latin America too. Click on a title to order a sample.

1. Finca Elida Green Tip Geisha Natural

One of the farms I have visited in February 2017 was Finca Elida, owned by the Lamastus family. They are well known for such a great Geisha lots, winning Best of Panama year after year and baristas repeatedly competing with their coffees. No wonder - this is the one you should go for your competition. Intense floral aroma with flavors of strawberries, hint of mint and creamy body. Sounds like a delicious dessert!    

2. Finca Elida Catuai Natural

When we did a blind cupping at the farm I found my favorite ever coffee: Catuai, naturally processed. It has intense candy sweetness with a fruit explosion, which it consistently delivers each year, crop after crop. Even the geishas were jealous.  

3. El Burro Geisha Natural

I tried to get to El Burro, driving two hours uphill on a rugged path that was one meter deep and the width of our car. Sadly it started to rain and the road became muddy and slippery. We had to turn back, but I see now in my cup how precious are those climate conditions up there. This coffee explodes with apricots, bergamot, exotic florals, strawberry.  It is juicy, sweet, and a well balanced cup.  

4. Brazil, Santuario Sul, Sudan Rume, Anaerobic 

Coffees on the drying beds at Santuario Sul. On the left, natural processed coffee. On the right, anaerobic.

Every morning I come to office and I brew my V60 and share with my colleague Suzie - the best start of the day, with a proper cup. I never thought I would be excited about brewing Brazilian coffee, but this year the team from Carmo Coffees brought lots which are total game changers. My favorite is the Sudan Rume processed by anaerobic fermentation - such a clean and fruity cup! Read more about these exciting coffees. 

5. Sidra 152 Lactic

Team of La Palma Y El Tucan are open about being coffee nerds. So am I and I believe most of us are, competitors especially. When looking for something funky, unexpected from Colombian coffees, they have wide selection of Heroes Series coffees including Sidra, Geisha, SL28 varieties. This year my favorite is a Sidra Lactic, fermented specifically to to play around with different acids found in the coffee. This sweet fruity coffee sparkles with blackberry, florals and banana. Buy it! Brew it! Win!

See Bjørnar’s Top Five.