Traipsing through rain-soaked jungle forests, negotiating deals over fried plantains, and ensuring our community aid programs are working. All in a week's work for Jon Rogers, our president while on business in Panama. Below are Jon's trip notes.
Tuesday 5/18. We arrived in Panama City at 20:30 hours - the culmination of 2 four hour flights and a four hour layover in Houston. It was a long day. What a change. Panama City is thriving. 450 new high rise buildings since my last trip here and wherever you look you see five or ten newer ones under construction. It looks like NYC on steroids.
We spent the afternoon meeting with some bankers to set up pre-crop loans to small farmers to so they can fertilize, control weeds, etc in anticipation of the coming crop.
Afterward, we showed them the site of our proposed wet/dry mill. They left around 15:00 hours. We spent the rest of the afternoon meeting with the five people of our Boquete staff in our offices.
Thursday 5/20. Today was a fairly strenuous day. In the morning, we pretty much walked all over Hacienda Barbara, our 90 acre organic coffee farm in Jaramillo (Boquete). We bought roughly 90 acres that was largely cow pasture with 25 acres of original growth jungle in the middle. The farm starts at about 3,000 feet and goes up to a little over 6,000 feet. We pretty much covered it all. It is amazing how much steeper those hills got since I lasted walked them five years ago (or is it me)?
The farm has roughly 70 acres planted in coffee, 25 left in the natural state and the rest devoted to roads, housing for the workers and areas too high to grow coffee. After a quick lunch, we went to the site where we are building our new wet/dry mill. We spend several hours staking the construction to be out on the ground – in the rain. Panama is a very rainy place. The annual rainfall varies between 4.5 meters (175.5 inches) and 6.0 meters (234 inches) per year. In northern California we get around 20 inches per year. By then it was raining pretty hard so we called it a day and went to Barry and Jane’s La Montaña y el Valle (The Coffee Estate Inn) to dry off.
Friday 5/21. Today was devoted to visiting many of the farmers who make up our small farmer co-op (called El Bareque). The objective was twofold:
- to review the quality aspects of the farm to make sure that quality was being maintained (improved) and review proposals for new Coffee Community Aid projects. In some cases we are still constructing and in other cases we are making sure the farm is maintaining what has been done in the past.
We got a late start, and it is slow going, so we only visited about six farms. In most cases the relationship is personal (we have been working together for 5 to 10 years), so you do not just walk in and walk out. Most offer some sort of refreshment and it would be rude to rush off. Also Pete [Rogers] is so well known in Boquete that as we travel around, we often have to stop and chat.
Saturday 5/22. We began the day meeting with the architect for the mill discussing revisions to the plans. We then loaded into the cars and headed out for Finca Las Brujas, a farm we purchased some time ago. In miles the trip is not so far, but some of the roads are pretty rough. It took over two hours to get there.
Las Brujas is about 400 acres about 10% in coffee and the rest in very heavy jungle scattered over steep hills. Despite the fact that the shade trees are much too thick, it looks like we will get a small, but excellent, crop this year. Then we loaded up to head off to the city of Volcan to spend the night.
Sunday 5/23
We started the day with coffee and fried plantains at the farm of a friend who consults with us on agricultural issues. The farm is beautiful and we will be buying some of its crop this year.
It is a little over an hour from the hotel (if you can call it that) to our largest coffee farm Finca Santa Maria. Santa Maria is about 500 acres roughly 250in coffee and 250 of jungle in a rectangle that runs right down the middle of the property – with lots of hills (that have also gotten steeper since my last trip). During the tour we saw a group of cappuccino monkeys traveling through the treetops. Later we saw about 50 parrots taking off as we approached. It is rewarding to know that the wildlife will always have a place to thrive at Finca Santa Maria.
We bought Santa Maria about three years ago. It was in pretty rough shape having been badly neglected. We had to re-plant large portions which are just now coming into fruition. We also had to build housing and living support for a large contingent of workers – permanent and temporary pickers.
There is still work to be done, but compared to other farms in that area it is a paradise. The crop, which will be picked from November through February, looks very good. After Santa Maria we visited a brand new co-op mill (from which we will be buying, and about four farms from which we already buy.
Monday 5/24
We spent several hours going over projects for the Panama team to achieve in the coming weeks. Finishing plans for the wet/dry mill, work to be done (farm by farm) budgets, etc. were the topics of the day. We then took off for the 2 ½ hour drive to David for a meeting with the absentee owner of a small farm near Santa Maria. It is possible we might buy the farm, or at least buy the coffee from the farm.
The plane from David to Panama City took off around 17:00 hours and got to the hotel in Panama City around 19:30 hours.
We had a meeting with another set of bankers who might provide pre-crop financing to cash tight famers. The farmers can improve both quality and quantity of their coffee with funds to fertilize, prune and generally care for the coffee trees. We finished around 21:30 hours. I was tired and ready for some quiet time.
Tuesday 5/25
We repeated the trip down in reverse, arriving in Sacramento just after 20:00 hours and getting home around 21:30 hours. It was good to be home.
Dint know organic farming even existed, you should introduce it in AFrica, Where am from....every body there is just on chemical substances; fertilizers
Posted by: stanley Gichuki | April 21, 2011 at 02:07 PM
Hi Stanley. We have in fact, introduced organic farming in Africa. We're currently working with cooperatives in Rwanda to improve agricultural techniques including farming with organic fertilizer derived from worms. Read more about it here on our Rwanda Coffee Blog: http://ikawarwanda.blogspot.com/2009/06/sustainable-farming-social.html Thanks for your comment! The Rogers Family.
Posted by: Jenni Farrell | May 12, 2011 at 09:43 AM