Pamela and Pablo's farm

Our story starts on a small coffee farm situated on the side of the Tambopata Valley - an area in the eastern foothills of the Andes, across the mountain peaks from Lake Titicaca and the city of Juliaca. Gregorio and David have climbed for two hours to reach the farm. Coffee grows in places between 200 metres and 800 metres above sea-level: the farm that Gregorio and David are visiting is one of the higher farms. It is owned by Pamela and Pablo.

History: how the coffee farms were made

About 40 years ago, the indigenous people who lived around Lake Titicaca, high in the Andes, desperately needed land to farm in order to survive. They organized unions to pressure the government to do something to help them. The government's response was to make a road down through the steep mountains to the forests in the east. This land was very remote and did not have many inhabitants. However, the land was fertile and people thought they would be able to make a good living there, growing coffee plants.

The people had to create their farms from nothing, and it was very hard work. They had to cut down trees to make space for the coffee plants; they had to make a level area on the hillside to dry the coffee beans; they had to make bricks from the soil and build their own houses.

The first three years were particularly hard for the new farmers because coffee plants do not produce fruit for the first three years. The farmers had no income because they had no coffee beans to sell. They grew fruit and vegetables in order to eat. And they anxiously looked after the coffee plants, waiting for the first beans.

Those early years of hardship, when they made no money at all, are remembered by all the farmers. For that reason, they feel very passionately about their farms.

Growing and picking the coffee

© 1995: the New Internationalist

Last Modified: 17 March 2000

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