How is it to be an organic coffee farmer?

 This is Gabriel Calderon I Have worked in the coffee industry since I am a kid. I was born on a coffee farm that belong in the family since 1950's

So I started same as many many kids in this town. Being a son of a coffee farmer. Playing around the fields And soon Working on the fields. Maybe they call it now child labor. But I grew up enjoying, Learning And I didn't feel I had to work and work hard. So that gave me the courage the knowledge and the enthusiasm to keep farming.

Same as many kids nowadays, They are told to leave the farms to make money. My dad told me that when I was a teenager. Because our changed to organic farming was going to make us lose our farm. So I studied English A little bit of computers. Work for a Company for a few years and then realize I am missing a lot by not being on the farm. So I came back work with my dad And try some projects by myself starting roasting coffee which we didn't do before, Started learning what else we can add to farming to make it good and sustainable for the family. So it didn't take long to actually build something very different Something that work something that help the farm something that even my dad was getting benefit from. we started roasting our coffee selling at the farmers markets The fact that I studied English before made me think about making a coffee tour and then it started bringing customers knowledge information from abroad And that started bringing more and more ideas That show us how to find how to make it possible and how to improve the farm and use new type of farming as well. 

Becoming an organic coffee producer involves determination in what you believe. And this means you are going to face lots of arguments about why not using chemicals and how your neighbors react to it. It is sometimes hearing you are doing things the wrong way. 

So now it is a whole different story. Organic farming has finally payoff And now we learned what our mistakes were. A quick change without knowledge was devastating for our family. My dad is staying in organic farming because of health and now It is the best thing happened on the farm

Being an organic coffee producer Is great. Changing from chemicals to organic nor really. But now the crisis is over and there are new ideas to continue

Now we even see the production with coffee as a fruit that we can use and we should not waste it. It is delicious and we can use it for manny other purposes like making wine making marmalades and a lot of other things.

So now the coffee production in my life is something we're enjoying everyday we can pass it on to the next genaration and tell them it is possible to make it liveable to make it healthy to make it less wasteful to make it sustainable  And why not profitable but changes have to be taking. 

Sadly Not every story has a happy ending. There are lots of neighbors cutting down their coffee Tearing down the trees to make more production Because there's not enough people who care about sustainable products out there. So if you are a coffee drinker and you wanna help this farmers pay more attention what kind of coffee you buy And why not getting it the closer as possible from the source. 

Contact Form, FOR QUESTIONS, IDEAS...

Name

Email *

Message *

Popular posts from this blog

Permacultura en café el Toledo!

Permacultura en cafe el toledo! Ha usted escuchado acerca de Permacultura? si no has escuchado el término antes no te preocupes! Es simple pero puede ser complejo al mismo tiempo! Pemacultura inicialmente fue una forma de describir una agricultura sosteniblemente desarrollada para trabajar con la naturaleza y no en contra de ella como eh inclusive la agricultura orgánica puede hacerlo! después el término permacultura evolucionó a describir la forma de vida de las personas y que viven tratando de desarrollar una vida con principios de sostenibilidad real! Permacultura es una rama de diseños ecológicos, ingeniería ecológica, diseños ambientales sostenibles, construcción eco amigables, manejo racional de recursos hídricos, sistemas auto generativos de habitas y agricultura basados en la observación de la naturaleza. El termino permacultura fue utilizado por primera vez en Australia por Bill Mollison y David Holmgren en 1978 “ Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than...
Read more

Our family

Image
We are a very small farm, the operation is manage by the family, Gerardo, Sole y Raul and Gabriel and Ivette, We want to show you how we work with nature instead of against it! Permaculture started as a way of improving our farming technics and continue on improving our way of living.  We welcome you to visit our site frequently to learn together how to live in a healthy and happy way. 
Read more

Que significa trabajar orgánico en armonía con la naturaleza?

Sabias que se puede trabajar Organico y estar en contra del Medio ambiente o la Naturaleza? Pues así es! Ponga atención a esto: Si trabajamos Organica sustitullendo productos quimicos por productos organicos unicamente estamos desbalanceando la naturaleza y apartandola. Si utilizabamos quimicos para matar insectos, buscamos un producto para matar insectos, si usabamos controlar los hongos con quimicos utilizamos productos organicos para matar hongos. Este sistema es muy limitante a producir un producto saludable unicamente en vez de trabajar en armonía con la naturaleza! Tambien podemos evitar el uso de muchos productos químicos si trabajamos en producciones tipo invernaderos, esto nos lleva a tener una producción cerrada, solo para humanos, el egoísmo de no dejar que la naturaleza se mescle con mis cultivos hace que se generen problemas ambientales al cubrir los suelos con plasticos ocacionando mas erosion o saturacion de agua en otros lugares ocasionando que el agua no sea filtrada ...
Read more

New products developed

Image
Español aqui!   Thanks to permaculture pricticis we started thinking about our waste with a different point of view: El Toledo Coffee family farm has been evolutionin in many forms and ways. This year harvest, 2016 and 2017. Wasn't the exception of this evolution. One unspected and surprising resolt of a new list of products created on the farm. First of all. We aren't the first ones. But there are no too many other people doing this yet. This year, after researching how good the coffee fruit is, and talking about why it has not been used, we decided to stop wasting it as most coffee farms do. Coffee natural sugars can get up to 30 % brix. (Measurement of sugar) Antioxidants are higher than blueberries. And there is a good taste of it. What do you think we can do with it? Please don't dout about giving us your ideas. Well, we have coffee fruit wine. And a coffee fruit juice. Coffee wine? -no. Coffee fruit wine! We did not use the beans or coffee ...
Read more

HOW TO KNOW YOUR COFFEE FOLLOWS YOUR ETHICS?

Image
Single origin Coffee  If you are looking por good Costa rican coffee El Toledo Coffee plantation can send it straight from the farm.  Drinking Costa Rican coffee is not that difficult anymore. But finding the right source could be the key to drink a special product and make sure you are not only enjoying it but knowing that you are supporting the right thing. Coffee is grown in many ways. Proccess very different from place to place. So if you can know more about the farming methods and ethics of the product you are drinking that can give you an idea if that one kind is what you want.  There are coffees grown in the best way, humble people, go practices with the environment, but nobody knows of it. That can be the coffee you are drinking right now.  But also, there are very harmful effects to the environment and nature depending of how the coffee is grown or processed. But marketed the best way so people pay a lot of money for it.  The money you pay for your coff...
Read more

What is permaculture?

Permaculture is a branch of ecological design, ecological engineering, environmental design, construction and integrated water resources management that develops sustainable architecture, regenerative and self-maintained habitat and agricultural systems modeled from natural ecosystems. The term permaculture (as a systematic method) was first coined by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in 1978. The word permaculture originally referred to "permanent agriculture" but was expanded to stand also for "permanent culture," as it was seen that social aspects were integral to a truly sustainable system as inspired by Masanobu Fukuoka's natural farming philosophy. “ Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system. —Bill Mollison ...
Read more

Our guidelines to learn to be happy

Image
Who does not look for happiness?           El Toledo farm is a humble place where farming and living is joined to form our happiness and wellbeing. We are what we eat, so we want to produce food to be healthy, we want to live well so we should invest time in building our happiness, as you know happiness is not a merchandise, so we can't buy it. But we can have it by being comfortable with what you do. Living this way is easy, we don't have to have a lot, just what we need and enough to what we want. And what we want should not be more and more every time, otherwise our enough is never enough!
Read more

Beneficios de la agricultura orgánica

Trabajar orgánico lamentablemente, para algunos agricultores, no es tan rentable como lo es trabajar convencional con químicos! Esta rentabilidad es basada en lo económico, en el dinero que somos capaces de producir si utilizamos químicos. Esto si bien es cierto año a año, no sucede en realidad si nos proyectamos al futuro, a una producción larga, a una estabilidad productiva para nuestras generaciones futuras. Para poder trabajar orgánico y no enfatizar que estamos perdiendo económicamente necesitamos entender todos los aspectos positivos que este tipo de agricultura nos brinda. La mayoría de estos, no son basados en el dinero, por lo tanto son, si así lo creemos, más necesarios para nuestra vida! Estamos hablando de aspectos como salud, sentirse bien, satisfacción de dar mas, mejorar el ambiente en nuestra propiedad, mejorar suelos preservarlos para el futuro, evitar problemas a los demás evitar problemas al ambiente, contribuir con los ciclos naturales, como los del agua por ejemp...
Read more

The ways we share what we learn!!

 El Toledo Coffee Family is a little business that likes to share what we do and what we learn with students, farmers, neighbors, and everyone else who would like to.  We have had students from different parts of the world taking the information that they consider can help others in their countries.  We had profetionals on different areas teaching and researching what happens on the farm with the sustainable way of farming and processing we have.  If you are interested in being part of the researching and learning experience we can get in touch to see how we can work together to help each other help others.  A whole gama of new products made from the coffee fruit that should not continue going to waste.  Let's support our future by being responsible today. 
Read more