Valle del Cauca, Colombia
Cafe Granja La Esperanza is a leading specialty coffee producer in Colombia, run by Don Rigoberto Herrera Correa. Don Rigo is the son of Juan Antonio Herrera & Blanca Ligia Correa and is the grandson of the original farm “Potosi” founders Israel Correa (grandfather) & Carmen Rosa Vega (grandmother).
Don Rigo’s grandparents founded the farm in 1930 when they arrived to the Northern area of the Valle del Cauca as part of a cultural, economic and social movement called “La Colonización Antioqueña” (The Antiochian Colonization) where many families, mainly from the Department of Antioquia, started to seek unoccupied land in the central and southern regions of Colombia.
In 1945, Don Rigo’s father, decided to introduce three different varieties to the existing Typica varietal. This is how he started a crop of Yellow Bourbon, Red Bourdon & Caturra varietals. This is when Café Granja La Esperanza begun officially, in 1945.
Out of 11 children that Don Rigo’s parents raised, all of whom worked on the farm, 2 of the children showed special interest in coffee production and processing – Don Rigo & his brother Luis. They decided to give new direction to the product changing the crops to organic in the late 1990’s. Besides the original Potosi farm, another farm in the Trujillo Region was acquired to enlarge the organic production, La Esperanza farm. In 2007, Don Rigo had the chance to lease and manage a coffee farm in the region of Boquete in Panama called “La Carleida” and a year later obtained first place in the “Best of Panama”, organized by the Specialty Coffee Association of Panama. At this point, he decided to bring some of the Geisha seeds to Colombia, starting a new era in the history of Granja La Esperanza.
Flor de mi Tierra was established in 2005 to work on re-building coffee communities displaced and hard hit by guerilla violence. The program focuses on basic needs such as health, sanitation and education & most-recently young entrepeneurs in coffee.
Caldas, Colombia
Launched in 2016, the Aguadas Farmworkers Pilot is a coffee industry coordinated project to find solutions and work on a benchmark to increase the quality of farmworker conditions, management, labor formalization and recruitment.
La Plata, Huila, Colombia
This association of over 400 women coffee farmers came together to solve issues including lack of capital to use on their farms and to create an equitable working relationship with their husbands. Today, they are committed to producing high-quality coffee.
Popayan, Cauca, Colombia
Popayan, Cauca, Colombia
An association of 392 organic coffee farmers who promote and develop technologies that increase the production and yields of excellent organic coffees. The projects helps to attract conventional farms to convert to organic.
