Since 2017, we as Kaffeemacher have been co-owners of the coffee farm Santa Rita in northern Nicaragua. Together with agronomist Roberto Castellano, we manage the small finca in Tablazon, Dipilto, about 30 km from Ocotal in the Nueva Segovia province.
Why are we doing this as Kaffeemacher?
As Kaffeemacher, our courses provide coffee knowledge from plant to cup. We are experts in everything from green coffee purchasing and roasting to the final beverage in hospitality or at home. We have been working in these areas of coffee processing for many years. We know agronomy and cultivation well – through travel, further education, and literature. In the future, we will also be able to report on cultivation first-hand.
At the same time, our goal since the founding of Kaffeemacher has been to create a connection across the entire coffee value chain, to facilitate exchange, and also to attempt a balancing of value creation. With our commitment, we want to stabilize a small finca and contribute to its development.
How does the ownership model work?
We consciously decided to become partners in an existing coffee farm rather than buying a farm and running it under our own name. There are several reasons for this. As partners in an existing farm, we can contribute to making necessary investments, thus making developments possible. The exchange with our partner Roberto allows us to learn from one another and benefit from our respective experiences.
We are 50% co-owners of the farm and share half of the expenditures for investments and ongoing costs. We share losses and profits equally.
We ensure that liquidity is available throughout the year when it is needed to carry out necessary measures and investments. This prevents coffee from being pre-sold or essential work on the farm from being neglected. This often leads to poor quality or harvest failures. In fact, this chain of events is one of the major problems on coffee farms.
What are the goals for the finca?
We want to produce outstanding coffee with the finca. At the same time, we aim to serve various needs and markets. The potential of the finca is enormous. It already produces a wide range of qualities, with scores ranging from 80 to 88 points.
It is important to us that we work as ecologically as possible and create a healthy cycle on the farm that contributes to soil health and ensures a vibrant flora and fauna. It is an experimental field that we look forward to exploring with Roberto. Incidentally, working with ecological projects is nothing new for Roberto. We will report on this soon.
A healthy cycle for the finca also means that we want to create secure jobs, fair wages, good sanitary conditions, and access to education and insurance for the farm's employees and temporary workers from the community. This is also an area of experimentation and learning that we want to approach step by step.
Taking the points above into consideration, the farm should become a stable, self-financing finca. This is important to us! This is not about sponsorship. We want to try to structure the farm so that it is entrepreneurially successful and also serves as a model for other co-owned fincas.
How is the finca managed, and how are the tasks divided?
The finca is strategically managed by Roberto Castellano and the Kaffeemacher (Benjamin and Philipp lead for the Kaffeemacher).
At the operational level, the Kaffeemacher are represented in Nicaragua by Tim Willems, who acts as the on-site Quality Manager and also as an extension of the Kaffeemacher in our name and with our authorization. Roberto and Tim, supported by a professional accountant who also handles central training and inventory tasks on the farm, lead the staff. Previously, one family lived on the Finca Santa Rita. A second family is now also moving to the finca. They belong to the new farm manager, who will begin their on-site work in the next few days.
As Kaffeemacher, our task, alongside our input and remote exchange, is to contribute to the visibility, marketing, and green coffee sales of Finca Santa Rita. Together with the local crew, we develop goals and plans regarding which varieties we produce and how we want to continue developing the finca.
One concern for Roberto and ourselves is to also make the finca a destination for volunteers and interested individuals who want to learn something about coffee.
What do the participants of the Kaffeemacher Academy get out of this?
As Kaffeemacher ourselves, we have learned — and truthfully already have — an incredible amount from and through Santa Rita. Just under six weeks ago, we sat on the farm and wrote a business plan for the finca together with Roberto and Tim. This considers not only all work steps per area and tree, but also inputs (fertilizer, pesticides), expected yields, and potential production costs if everything goes as planned. From this, and with a look at the coffee exchange in New York, it becomes clear whether the farm will be in the black or the red in the coming year. We will incorporate all of this into our courses. You will learn very tangible, concrete things from the farm. If it rains too early in Nicaragua, we will know about it immediately and will be able to explain to you in our courses what that means for Finca Santa Rita, but also for other countries and regions.
The farm will — just like our hospitality projects have so far — provide concrete content and examples that we will integrate directly into our training. However, the possibilities go far beyond that. Very soon, we want to be in a position to also welcome visitors to Finca Santa Rita. They should be able to learn on-site what coffee cultivation means.
The possibilities for exchange are enormous. A concrete opportunity for exchange already exists now.
In cooperation and close collaboration with Boca de Lobo, Claudia Lovo, and co.
With our finca, we benefit very concretely from the close cooperation with El Arbol, Boca de Lobo, and the human connection with Claudia Lovo and Tim Willems. Without these two, we would not have embarked on this project and would not be in a position to help manage a farm in Nicaragua today. Both have done great preliminary work and enable us to learn functional concepts from their farm. We are enormously grateful for the networking and supportive partnership and neighborhood with Boca de Lobo and El Arbol.
Boca de Lobo already has a functioning exchange and volunteer model, as well as a one-week farm and agronomy practice training program. In February, we as Kaffeemacher are conducting a course in cooperation with El Arbol.
You can apply for the course via the website. We will delve deeply into farm life, both theoretically and practically, and be trained by Roberto, our partner at Finca Santa Rita.
