Brazil Dry Process Doña Marta

Doña Marta and her family started their small coffee farm, Fazenda Sítio Cabeceira, on property inherited by their parents. Their family has a history of growing coffee in this region that stretches back to before there were access roads, and transported their coffee from the farm by packhorse and cart. Once they took the reins the renewal process began. What blew us away when visiting her and her husband Evandro, was that their farm is just 1 hectare in size. In a country known for massive coffee estates and mechanized production, it's quite an unusual site! But small holder farms like theirs are a lot more common in their town of Serra dos Borges, resembling what you'd see in Colombia, where all of the production is managed by just the family. One of the first things they did was prune the old coffee, and also plant new trees. Part of this process was to create more space between the coffee plants. Proper plant density impacts the health the tree, and makes it easier to harvest cherries. It also makes it much easier to keep the ground clean from debris that invites pests, like plant material and fallen cherries. We were lucky enough to buy all of their Specialty grade coffee the last two years, which this year amounted to 24 bags. This coffee was purchased through an exporter in Minas Geraís who we were introduced to last year. We were really impressed with the quality of the samples they sent us. Dani, who manages operations and is a farmer herself, offered us access to a lot of new opportunities around Minas Geraís, working with small farmers like Marta and Evandro.

Check out our video tour of Marta and Evandro's 1 hectare farm in Serra Borges