Since 2017, we, as coffee makers, have been co-owners of the Santa Rita coffee farm in northern Nicaragua. Together with agronomist Roberto Castellano, we manage the small finca in Tablazon, Dipilto, about 30 km from Ocotal in the province of Nueva Segovia.
Why do we do this as coffee makers?
As coffee makers, we impart coffee knowledge from plant to cup in our courses. We are experts in everything from purchasing green coffee to roasting and brewing, whether for restaurants or at home. We have been working in these coffee processing areas for many years. We are well-versed in agronomy and cultivation – through travel, continuing education, and literature. In the future, we will also be able to provide firsthand reports on cultivation.
At the same time, our goal from the very beginning of the Kaffeemacher initiative was to create connections across the entire coffee value chain, facilitate exchange, and also attempt to balance the value created. With our commitment, we aim to stabilize a small finca and contribute to its development.
How does the ownership model work?
We consciously decided to become a partner in an existing coffee farm rather than buying one and running it under our own name. There are several reasons for this. As a partner in an existing farm, we can contribute to making necessary investments and thus enabling further development. The exchange with our partner Roberto allows us to learn from each other and benefit from our respective experiences.
We are 50% co-owners of the farm, contributing half of the capital expenditures and running costs, and we share profits and losses.
We ensure that liquidity is available throughout the year when needed to carry out necessary measures and investments. This prevents coffee from being sold in advance or important work on the farm from being missed. This often leads to poor quality or crop failure. In fact, this interlinkage is one of the biggest 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 want to serve a variety of needs and markets. The finca's potential is enormous. It already produces a wide range of qualities within a range of 80–88 points.
It's important to us that we work as ecologically as possible and create a healthy cycle on the farm, which contributes to the health of the soil and ensures a vibrant flora and fauna. It's a field of experimentation that we're looking forward to exploring with Roberto. Incidentally, working with ecological projects is nothing new for Roberto. We'll be reporting on that soon.
The finca's healthy cycle also includes providing secure jobs, fair wages, good sanitation, and access to education and insurance for the finca's employees and temporary community workers. This, too, is an area for experimentation and learning, in which we intend to make progress step by step.
Taking the above points into account, the farm should become a stable, self-financing finca. This is important to us! Sponsorship is not the goal. We want to try to shape the farm so that it is commercially successful and also serves as a model for other co-owned fincas.
How is the finca managed and are the tasks distributed?
The finca is strategically managed by Roberto Castellano and the coffee makers (Benjamin and Philipp in the lead for the coffee makers).
At the operational level, the coffee makers in Nicaragua are represented by Tim Willems, who serves as the on-site Quality Manager and also acts as an extension of the coffee makers on our behalf and with our authority. Roberto and Tim, supported by a professional accountant who also has central training and inventory responsibilities on the farm, manage the staff. Until now, one family lived at Finca Santa Rita. A second family is now also moving to the finca. They belong to the finca's new farm manager, who will begin work on site in the next few days.
As coffee makers, our job is to contribute not only to the coffee's visibility and marketing from a distance, but also to Finca Santa Rita's coffee production and distribution. Together with the on-site crew, we develop goals and plans regarding which varieties we will produce and how we want to further develop the finca.
One of Roberto's and our goals is to make the finca a starting point for volunteers and anyone interested in learning about coffee.
What do the course participants of the Coffee Maker Academy get out of this?
As coffee makers ourselves, we will – and, to be honest, we already have – learned an incredible amount from and through Santa Rita. Almost six weeks ago, we sat on the farm and, together with Roberto and Tim, wrote a business plan for the finca. This not only takes into account all the work steps per area and tree, but also inputs (fertilizer, disease control agents), yield expectations, and potential production costs if everything goes as planned. Based on this, and with a look at the coffee market in New York, it becomes clear whether the farm will be financially in the black or in 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 have daily updates and can explain to you in our courses what this means for Finca Santa Rita, but also in other countries and regions.
The farm will—as has been the case with our gastronomy projects—provide concrete content and examples that we will incorporate directly into the training courses. However, the possibilities extend far beyond this. Very soon, we want to be able to welcome visitors to Finca Santa Rita. They will be able to learn firsthand what coffee cultivation entails.
The opportunities for exchange are enormous. One concrete opportunity for exchange already exists.
In cooperation and close collaboration with Boca de Lobo and Claudia Lovo and co.
With our finca, we benefit specifically from the close collaboration with El Arbol, Boca de Lobo, and the personal connection with Claudia Lovo and Tim Willems. Without them, we wouldn't have embarked on the project and wouldn't be able to co-manage a farm in Nicaragua today. They have done tremendous groundwork and enabled us to learn working concepts from their farm. We are enormously grateful for the networking and supportive partnership and neighborly relationship with Boca de Lobo and El Arbol.
Boca de Lobo already has a functioning exchange and volunteer model, as well as a one-week practical farm and agronomy training program. In February, we, as coffee producers, will be conducting a course in cooperation with El Arbol.
You can apply for the course via the website. We'll delve deeply into farm life, both theoretically and practically, and receive instruction from Roberto, our partner at Finca Santa Rita.
