Small Farmer, Big Plans: Part Three

Unión MicroFinanza continues the story of farmer Antonio Ponce Bautista in UMF's third Fresh Cup Magazine article.

In this installment of the five-part series, Tonito has high hopes for this year. He may have to contend with bad weather and muddy roads, but that doesn't hinder his plans for future harvests.

"Small Farmer, Big Plans: Part III" is published in Fresh Cup's February issue, and can be found online here: http://freshcup.epubxp.com/issue/53427/48

For an introduction to the series, watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0O0tjK3k8E

First coffee fermented, and more has arrived!

After processing our first coffee at the beneficio last night, we barely had time to grab a couple hours of sleep before getting back to it this morning. There was coffee to be processed, and Pastor Bernardo had another 2,000 lb of coffee cherries that he picked today!

We put discarded coffee pulp from Pastor Bernardo's coffee
 into the vermiculture, which will turn into La Union's first
 large-scale available organic fertilizer in a matter of months

We started at 6 am by checking on the coffee that we depulped last evening. It was looking great, but needed the rest of the day to finish fermenting. With a new coffee coming this evening, it was no time to relax and reflect—there was much work to be done! We started by moving all of the coffee pulp into the vermiculture, where it will start composting into organic fertilizer. We then refilled our upper water tank with water for today’s processing, washed all of the tanks, adjusted the depulping machine, and it was time to go again!

Pastor Bernardo arrived at 4 pm, and we were ready. We checked each sack of coffee cherries for quality and began loading it for processing. The coffee he brought us yesterday was done fermenting at 4:10 pm. Over fermenting coffee by even 30 minutes can damage its quality,  so we washed it, sent it through the correteo to sort it, and moved it back into the tank to soak overnight. (Sorry, no pictures here—it was all hands on deck to ensure that this coffee was washed at the same time as we received and depulped the coffee that Pastor brought us today).

Bernardo Ponce and son see their coffee for the first time,
as UMF employee Patrick Hughes shows them its
progress during fermentation

Things went more smoothly today, and we were finished depulping shortly after dark. We will be back out by sunrise tomorrow morning to move Pastor Bernardo’s first coffee from soaking tanks into solar dryers, prepare to wash the coffee he brought us today, move coffee pulp, and continue making adjustments to the beneficio. As always, check back soon for more updates—coffee will be going into solar dryers tomorrow!

The first coffee is at the beneficio!

The first coffee is here!

UMF employees Martir Alvarado and Charlie Heins
work on final preparations at the beneficio

We are excited to say that Pastor Bernardo Ponce from Las Peñas brought the first coffee down from his field today, and we started processing it at the beneficio!

It was a busy day as we ran tests on the water system, mounted and calibrated the depulping machine, and made sure that everything was in tip-top shape for the first coffee to arrive; we finished the last tweaks just 30 minutes before Pastor Bernardo pulled up in a pickup truck with 2,000 lb of coffee cherries.

Pastor Bernardo Ponce shows off the coffee he just brought
down from his field--the first ever to be processed at the
beneficio

After months and months of planning, building, and preparing, it was a truly special moment to see the joy on Pastor Bernardo’s face as he helped unload his coffee and the pride with which he showed us his coffee. And what a coffee it is! It qualified for a picking bonus, meaning it was an exceptionally well prepared coffee.

Depulping ran late into the night, but
the coffee looks great as it enters
the fermentation tank

We finished unloading and weighing his coffee just before nightfall, and continued depulping well into the darkness. After depulping finished, we filled the fermenting tank with water. The coffee will ferment here for the next day before moving onto the next step of processing—washing, soaking, and sorting in the recently finished correteo.

Coffee pulp, normally a damaging waste of processing,
is ready to be moved to the vermiculture where it will
be made into organic fertilizer

In the morning, we will load the leftover pulp (or coffee fruit) into the vermiculture where we will start the process of turning it into the first organic fertilizer produced at the beneficio.

There is plenty of work to do from here—more solar dryers to be built, adjustments to be made to the water system, and more coffees to process. After we have a few hours to recover from the day’s work, we will be back to check on the progress of Pastor Bernardo’s coffee before sunrise tomorrow. Check back soon to follow the two week progression as we continue processing this coffee and prepare for more!

Thank you to everybody that has supported us, especially the good people of Calvary CRC in Holland, MI, as we worked with the farmers of La Unión to turn the dream of a high-quality processing center into a reality. 

Beneficio Update: Almost finished!

Construction continues well at the beneficio! We are in the final stages before being able to start processing. We finished installing the shelves on the first solar dryer, which means it is ready to start drying coffee.

The correteo is almost completed, we just need to smooth walls, lay the floor, and add another faucet before it can be used to sort coffee. This should be done in the next three days!

We also painted all of the tanks white. We started with two coats of sealant, which will prevent the tanks from absorbing dirt or water which could negatively affect quality, and then we finished the tanks with a latex paint. Much more than aesthetic work, this will provide three important functions. First, and most importantly, this will help us to keep the most important parts of the beneficio extremely clean. Much as critical areas in hospitals are kept white to ensure cleanliness, the white paint will help us see any dirt as we clean these areas daily. Second, the sealant will prevent the tanks from absorbing dirt or other contaminants. And third, this will help to protect these areas from sun or rain damage.

There are only four steps left before we are able to start processing. We are connecting the water system and performing flow tests as I write this update, the correteo is being finalized, and we will be installing the depulper as soon as the water system has been tested. The water treatment system only needs tubes to be connected over the next few days. Check back soon to read more as we finalize these and get ready to start processing coffee!

Beneficio, Systems Explanation: Solar Dryers

Once coffee is fermented and washed, it must be dried from 46% humidity down to 11%, at which point it is stable to be stored for long period of time. If this drying doesn’t begin within hours of washing, the high humidity levels can cause the coffee to develop off flavors and ruin it. At the beneficio, we will be using solar dryers for this drying process.

When people hear the words “solar dryers” they often think of solar panels, moving parts, or engines; however, solar dryers use the sun’s energy in a much more direct way. Solar dryers look much like small greenhouses, with shelves inside of them to dry coffee. They provide protection from wind and rain, while concentrating the sun’s energy into a force to dry the coffee.

Solar dryers concentrate the sun's energy to dry coffee

Other than solar dryers, there are two main forms of coffee dryers. The highest volume form is mechanical dryers, which load approximately 22,000 lb of coffee into an elevator system and heat coffee by burning wood or coffee shells. The other is patio drying, in which coffee is spread into thin layers on a cement patio.

There are two reasons that we are using solar dryers instead of these other two options: quality and environmental sustainability.

We are configuring our solar dryers to dry coffee in 7-10 days, as opposed to the 4-6 days of patios or the 24 hours of mechanical dryers. High temperatures created by contact with hot cement or passing near the flames of mechanical dryers are damaging to the structure of the coffee bean, lowering the quality. Additionally, coffee is never placed on the ground using our solar dryers. Patios, which must be used for a short amount of time even when mechanically drying coffee, are frequent hosts to trucks, children, dogs, chickens, pigs, and anything else that may be in the area. Finally, there is no way to bring coffee that is on a patio under shelter quickly in the case of a rain storm, and rewetting coffee even slightly can completely ruin the quality. Mechanical dryers cause great physical stress on the coffee—not only because of high temperatures but also because of the large impacts that happen as the coffee falls almost 40 feet from the top of the dryer to the bottom.

Patio drying coffee takes large amounts of space
and dries coffee on the ground, where it is often walked on and driven over

Our second reason for using solar dryers is that they are an important part of making an environmentally sustainable beneficio. Drying patios require extremely large amounts of space and, therefore, a very large amount of cement. Due to the large area necessary, drying patios also represent a reduction in arable land. By installing solar dryers, we are keeping the land surrounding the beneficio available to grow off-harvest plants (from new coffee seedlings to nitrogen fixing beans to hardwood trees to plant in farms).

Mechanical dryers have a tall column (blue in picture) with
large furnaces to heat coffee (silver in picture)

Mechanical dryers, on the other hand take up a relatively small amount of space but require large amounts of energy input. First, they require electrical energy to consistently move the 22,000 lb of coffee inside them. Second, they require large fires to create the temperatures necessary to dry coffee. This requires the use of wood, causing deforestation; or coffee shells, which could otherwise be used to make organic fertilizers; and the burning of either of these produces carbon dioxide which is then released into the atmosphere. Once built, solar dryers require no input other than one person to move coffees every 30 minutes.

We installed our first of four solar dryers in a joint training session with IHCAFE, UMF clients, and members of the COCAQUIL Coffee Cooperative. The other three will be installed in coming weeks as we prepare to ramp up processing at the beneficio.

So there you have it—solar dryers.

Beneficio, Update 6: Two floors, and more!

There has been great progress at the beneficio in the past week!

The first advancement has been in the roof of the beneficio. Receiving and initial sorting actually occur on this roof (which doubles as a floor). This is the area where the floater-separator and de-stoning machine are located. Martir also put together some stairs to make it easier to get up and down.





Which brings us to the next update: the floater-separator and de-stoning machine have been installed. They were built into the floor, but received additional finishing work to ensure the proper dimensions. Additionally, each of these has a grate in the bottom which will allow water to drain out when not in use. This water will drain into a collection bin, then flow to join up with other water used in the beneficio. This water will then go into the beneficio’s water purification system (more soon!).



The receiving tank is almost complete. An incline was built in to help move coffee toward the exit. All that is missing is a gate at the exit and a faucet.






The fermentation tanks are also almost finished, with inclines built in to help facilitate movement of water and coffee. These tanks have a grate for the exit of water and coffee mucilage after fermenting and washing, and a separate exit for coffee. Coffee will go from fermentation tanks into a correteo (SPOILER ALERT: A new piece of equipment to be installed. More soon!).


The storage room finally resembles a room. The floor has been laid, and space has been made where the door and window will go.








There isn’t a ton of space inside, but plenty to store some processing documentation, a little coffee waiting to be moved into storage, or UMF employees pulling all-nighters watching fermenting coffee.






Oh yeah, and the view out the window isn’t too bad, either!









The vermiculture is almost completed. All that is left is the second level of cement blocks in the channels where coffee pulp will be placed, and a few more sheets of roofing.






Up next: Installation of tubing for the water system, finishing up the gate for the receiving tank, laying the last bricks and roofing pieces on the vermiculture, and hanging the door and window on the storage room. Stay tuned for more!

Beneficio, Systems Explanation: The Big Picture

Okay, so we’ve been showing updates and talking about the beneficio for more than a month now, but how does it all fit together? That’s the purpose of this systems explanation—to show how everything comes together. First, here is a computer model that was used for its design, which shows what everything will look like when its done:

There are 11 major parts to the beneficio, though not all are physically connected. Each system has a picture at its current stage of development (but please excuse any mess, it is still under construction!)

1. Receiving: Trucks will drive up into the flat area behind the beneficio and unload coffee into the receiving tank. We will measure the volume of cherry coffee coming in, and also take samples to check for over-ripe, under-ripe, and damaged coffee. We will be giving bonuses of L.5/gallon (about $0.06/lb) for coffees meeting the high quality standards.

Coffee will flow out of the receiving tank and into the …


2. Floater-Separator: This mechanism will separate out damaged beans (called ‘vanos’ in Spanish). Bad coffee flowing into the floater-separator will float on the top of water in this basin and get siphoned off into a separate holding tank.

Good coffee, on the other hand, will fall to the bottom of this basin, then get suctioned through a tube to the…



3. Destoning Machine: This machine also functions using relative densities. Stones, sticks, and other objects that may be mixed in with coffee will be pulled downward while coffee floats with the water current.

This step is vital to be sure that no foreign, potentially damaging, objects enter the…




4. Depulping Machine: Fruit is separated from bean in the depulping machine (note: currently under construction, only the forms for the depulping machine mount, not the machine itself, is pictured).

Fruit is gathered to be transported to the vermiculture and coffee beans are transported to the…




5. Fermentation tanks: Fermentation is one of the most important steps to producing a specialty quality coffee. All coffee will be fermented under water to ensure even fermentation, and will be washed after 12-16 hours to remove the sticky mucilage (which would otherwise ruin the coffee) which is left after depulping.


Washing water and coffee are then passed separately in the…

6. Water Separator: The fermentation tanks each have small exits at the bottom, so that the water-mucilage mixture can be separated from coffee and disposed of. Coffee is left about 95% mucilage free.

To remove the rest of the mucilage, coffee is moved to the…







7. Soaking Tanks (not yet installed, picture from another beneficio): Coffee sits in soaking tanks for 24 hours, with water being changed every 6 hours. This ensures that no mucilage is left in the coffee.

Once soaked, the coffee is moved to the…




8. Solar Dryers (not yet installed, picture from another beneficio): Coffee leaves the soaking tanks with a water content of 46% and must be dried to 12% in solar dryers. Coffee will be in solar dryers for 7-10 days, being moved every 30 minutes throughout that time.






9. Water system (not yet installed): Coffee is transported through this system using water. All water is collected from the vermiculture roof, pumped to a pressurizing tank 100 ft above the beneficio, then released for transport, use in the floater-separator, fermentation, and washing processes.

10. Roof: This year, we will have a tarp roof for the beneficio. Between harvests, we plan to complete the roof.

11. Storage Room: We will be taking advantage of every square inch of the beneficio area. Rather than filling in the space below the beneficio floor, we put in an extra wall and will be using this area for storage of machinery, coffee, and occasionally sleeping when processing goes through the night.





There it is! Keep checking back for more updates on the progress, as we plan to finish construction within the next two weeks.