Peru Alejandro Gomez

Story

Alejandro Gomez began growing coffee in 2005 and was a very traditional conventional coffee farmer until his farm was hit heavily by Coffee Leaf Rust in 2011. He was forced to pull up the majority of his farm and plant new disease resitant varieties like Bourbon & Caturra. In the years since planting these varieties he has also expanded into high specialty varieties like Geisha and Parainema. Alejandro is very interested in learning from everyone around him, and like a sponge he has gathered knowledge from technicians, engineers, and other producers to make his product better with each passing season. He has developed a strong ecosystem on his farm to aid in the quality, like planting a diverse amount of crops to enrich the nitrogen content in the soil and create natural shade for his crops. Plus these other crops produce fruit to subside the family and to bring to market and help with cashflow on the farm. He grows: Coffee, Pitahaya, & Citrus as well as keeping bees who in turn produce honey and honeycomb to sell. This is our first year working with Alejandro Gomez but our third working with the cooperative he is a member of (El Milagro). We are very excited to highlight Alejandro’s work and skill this season and continue our partnership with El Milagro!