Villa Rosario
BOLIVIA
Valentin Quispe represents the second generation in his family who have chosen coffee growing as their profession. Valentin is working with his father who started growing coffee on a 3-hectare plot. Currently, they are farming on 5 hectares and mainly producing Caturra and Catuai varietals. Their current lot is processed with the dry method.
Coffee production in Bolivia can be traced back as far as 1880 when large landowners produced all of the coffee until 1991. Production has always been small, leaving Bolivia as a minor player on the world stage. In the last 10 years, exports have continuously dropped. The aim of Agricafe is to do its part in reversing this trend while allowing coffee producers to have a fair price for their hard work. To achieve this they introduced The Sol De La Mañana program, educating local producers by providing training and skills necessary to improve the quality of their farms. Valentin and his father joined the program and in the beginning, they were very sceptical about the new ways of growing coffee but soon they learned together and the results showed that the plantation can yield great quality coffees. Together they acquired more land and tried different coffee varietals. By now, Valentin has his own coffee lot, and he is very happy with it.