ColombiaGuillermo Muñoz

Cafe Agrario is an association of producers from Ortega in Tolima. Most of the 35 associates are coffee growers. Cafe Agrario has seen some difficulties as it is situated in a region troubled by the civil war but also suffered from poor leadership when coffees were sold on credit to coffee buyers who never paid for coffee delivered.

In more recent years, they have been focusing on specialty coffee to add value to their product and also roast and sell their coffee locally.

Siruma, our specialty export partners in Colombia, have invested in this community and their agronomist, Pilar has been delivering workshops to the group on coffee processing and organising the structure of the Association. This was highlighted as a real need for them when baseline data was taken. Cafe Agrario started by having to deliver their coffee to a local trader as they didn't have the capacity or organisation to deliver to Siruma. With Siruma's help they are able to directly sell to them and are also achieving higher quality premiums with all the agronomy support.

Guillermo Munoz, a coffee grower from Ortega, Tolima, is 55 years old and owns the El Bolsillo farm located in the Alto Guayabos vereda. The farm spans 1 hectares, with 0.95 hectares dedicated to coffee cultivation at an altitude of 1,860 meters. He cultivates Castillo coffee that is around 5000 trees with 4-5 years of age.

He actually originates from Caldas and arrived in Tolima when he was 22 years old to work as a picker on farms. He eventually found his way to working for Aristubulo Rayo (another Agrario member) where he worked for 10 years saving money and learning how to farm so he could then buy his own small farm and 1ha of land from Don Aristubulo.

The coffee process is fully washed, with cherries meticulously sorted to ensure only perfectly ripe ones are used. Guillermo is only picking fully ripe cherries are harvested. The picking cycle occurs every 20 days. Once collected the cherry is washed and cleaned and then left to ferment for 12 hours usually overnight in bags. The coffee is then pulped and dry fermented in a tank for 36 hours.

The drying process involves using a parabolic solar dryer, where an ideal 3cm layer of coffee is maintained to ensure even and slow drying for around 12 days.