Mathew Mugo and his farm managers showing John their natural processed (dried in the fruit) crop at their Kirimara Farm.
Directly Traded
We source our coffee from only two farms: Elvira and Tomas in Mexico, and Mathew Mugo in Kenya. We have long-term relationships with both farmers that we have built over a decade of harvest trips to their farms. We recruit volunteers each year to join us in traveling to the coffee farms and helping with the harvest.
Tomas Cruz and Elvira Velasco, our host farmers in Oaxaca, Mexico consider our annual coffee harvesting volunteers to be their extended family and make the 2 week harvest and farm stay into a family reunion. In many ways, our farm and homestead in Wisconsin is inspired by the permaculture style of farming we have learned from spending time with them.
Mathew Mugo, our host farmer in Kenya, has many small coffee farms scattered around his home in Kirinyaga. Some of his farms are very old and some have been recently planted with newer coffee varieties. We have taken Permacutlure students to his farms to help implement more soil and water conservation practices, plant Macademia and Avocado trees for shade and product diversity, and have been experimenting with different coffee processing techniques to enhance quality.
From an economic standpoint direct trade is an assurance to our farmers that we will be a reliable, high-value market for them to count on. This provides security for them to make long-term investments in their farm that will continue to increase the health of their forests and quality of their coffee harvest. We are proud to pay a high price for our coffee, a price we ask the farmers to set and we pay directly to them. Our Coffee CSA has allowed us to purchase coffee from our farmers a year in advance. This provides our farmers with the capital at the beginning of the year to use throughout the growing and harvesting season.