What does Organic Coffee mean to me?

Lessons learned from farming organic coffee in Antigua Guatemala. 

My name is Josué Morales and I have been in the coffee industry since 2003. Seventeen years ago, I was absolutely skeptical about organic coffee and about organic agriculture in general.

Today I am in charge of the production and all the processes at Beneficio La Esperanza and Finca El Pintado. Two farms under the management of Los Volcanes Coffee, which are not only Organic Certified Estates in Antigua Guatemala, but also the only organic coffee produced in this region. These farms are the leading research and testing grounds for organic agriculture in the whole country.

Since 2016 our leadership in the organic arena has made it possible to implement the principles and processes developed in Guatemala, in coffee farms and production facilities in Brazil. Fazenda Pilar, in North Paraná, and Fazenda Rio Brilhante, in the Pantano Micro Region of Cerrado, in Minas Gerais are rapidly adopting the methodologies that we developed in Guatemala.

As good as it sounds, the story behind my change of sides, from being almost against organic anything to being a leader in organic coffee and organic agriculture is not precisely a pretty one.

In the beginning, my approach to coffee was exclusively about the quality of the cup. How that coffee was grown and produced was of little to no importance to me, as long as the coffee presented the characteristics that were being the most valued by an emerging market that rewarded cup score above everything else.

About ten years ago, in the early 2010’s, Guatemala and most of Latin America was severely impacted by the Leaf Rust or “Roya”, a fungal disease that makes a host out of coffee leaves, restricting its ability to perform photosynthesis, and therefore affecting the production of the plant –and even its survival.

Coffee Leaf Rust.

The quality of the cup –the only thing that mattered to me at that time– was deeply affected, and that was the huge red flag that signaled to me that there was something important that I was not paying attention to. In order to survive, I had no other choice but to start considering options that I would have never considered before.

I visited each and every coffee producing region in Guatemala, I traveled to as many other coffee producing countries as I could, I gathered as many ideas as possible. I was considering every idea that existed.

After what I considered an exhaustive process of ideation, I was ready to move on into the next stages: prototyping and testing.

Beneficio La Esperanza, in Antigua Guatemala, became my testing facility. It’s a small farm of five and a half hectares (about 13.5 acres) planted with assorted varieties of coffee, from rust resistant, to rust tolerant, to highly vulnerable to rust.

The first few years can only be described as massive failures. We experienced a severe and extended drought and the first frost in thirty years. And on top of that, the resistance to a change in managerial style was heating things up even more.

This farm had been managed by the previous team in the same conventional way for more than thirty years and all of a sudden I was introducing new divisions, new processes, new combinations, new expectations –new everything! It was nothing but a surprise that an organizational culture turmoil would become an additional ingredient in the mix.

In the middle of those circumstances, we divided the farm in identical sectors where different agricultural practices were tested. Many combinations were tested. High nutrition. Low nutrition. High conventional fertilizers. Low conventional fertilizers. No fertilizers. You name it.

Every single indicator used to measure our success was a disaster. Cup quality, yields per hectare, production per plant, fruit density, and foliage health were all a disaster.

The whole farm was at a point at which nothing could make things worse.

And that’s exactly what I did: nothing.

The rainy season of that year came and went. Shortly after, I clearly remember my first walk through the farm. As I was struggling to make my way through weeds and grass that had grown taller than the coffee trees –and of course taller than me– I made the discovery that changed my perception of coffee production for good.

The coffee plants were surprisingly productive and they were suspiciously healthy underneath the surrounding overgrowth. All my experiments had failed and during the worst part of the leaf rust crisis, the farm was still in better shape than those of most producers in the country.

After clearing the farm from the overgrowth, it was obvious that giving the land a rest had been extremely beneficial for the coffee trees.

Much like us human beings, sometimes all the plants need is a rest. Especially after being asked to be productive all the time for so many years.

Passing this wisdom forward to our team and to our employees was a breeze! Deep down inside, all of them already knew that if they were surrounded by an environment that would make them healthier and stronger, they would naturally be more productive. Why would the plants behave any differently? It’s evident for them as it is for any of us that, after all, we are alive!

That year, the productivity of each tree was way above average, the quality of the harvested cherries was uniform, and the quality of the cup was outstanding.

The conclusion to which I arrived was inevitable: leaving nature alone to form its natural self-balancing systems and to carry its natural processes has no substitute.

It’s from this simple but profound insight that I learned my own definition of what organic agriculture really is, and it’s based on this definition that I have designed, created, and implemented the agricultural processes and methodologies that have allowed me to become a leader in Organic Coffee Production in Guatemala, and soon in Brazil too.

Organic agriculture is a system that sustains life, health, and the structure of soil.

As you probably noticed, this is a positive definition, not a negative one, as is the belief of many producers.

My definition of Organic Coffee Production says yes to life, says yes to health, and says yes to the natural structure of the soil

Most other definitions out there are negative. Some claim to be organic coffee producers because they say no to herbicides. Some claim to be organic coffee producers because they say no to fungicides. Some claim to be organic coffee producers because they say no to synthetic pesticides. Some claim to be organic coffee producers because they say no to Growth-Promoting Antibiotics. Some claim to be organic coffee producers because they say no to GMOs.

I bet you can easily tell the difference between their definitions and mine.

I say yes to nature. I say yes to life. I say yes to health. That is what has made all the difference in my production. That is what has made all the difference in my methodologies. That is what has made all the difference in myself, as a human being.

That our coffee has an outstanding cup quality is a fact, but it’s not my main objective –let alone my sole objective– anymore. It’s just a byproduct of caring about nature, caring about life, and caring about people.