Community Surveys

Rainy season is finally over (with the exception of getting caught in 2 rainstorms last week) and this means that activity is starting to pick back up in our area.  Farmers are beginning to harvest their coffee, mills are getting prepared to process coffee cherries and the roads are starting to be navigable again.  Now that people are out and about, we've got a lot of things going on.

First, we're about to begin construction on our new training center in the village.  The training center will be a place where we can bring farmers for agricultural trainings, cup and evaluate coffee from the community, as well as have a place where we can sleep when we need to stay in the village.  Construction is set to begin November 1st.

Secondly we are processing some coffee this year.  Our goal is to export several tons to the US next year, so we are using this year as an opportunity to figure out our systems and refine our processing flow.  We still have a lot of construction to do in order to handle the volume we need next year, so having some of the basics figured out will hopefully cut down on problems in the future.

  The biggest thing we are working on is conducting community surveys in our area.  One of the largest problems we are facing is knowing what kind of coffee the farmers have.  Different coffee varieties have different qualities, tastes and different price points in a quality focused market.  Because farmers in our area have only had access to a volume market, they usually sell all their coffee together for one price.  Our goal is to buy their higher quality coffee, process it well and then send it to America next year.  We are attempting  to track down at least 60 tons of the good stuff, which is A LOT of work.

One day a week we've devoted ourselves to conducting community surveys in order to try and solve this problem.  Basically, we have written out several questions like:

• What kind of coffee do you have?  
• How much did you produce last year?
• How much were you paid for your coffee last year?
• Would you be interested in planting different kinds of coffee in the future?

So far this has been great for gathering information and also building relationships with people.  We try to end the time with asking the farmer if they are having any problems and if there is anything we can pray for.  There is almost always a request for their health or someone in their family.

Please continue to pray for us as we go around and visit with farmers over the next several months.

Rainy Season

We are currently still in the middle of rainy season here in South East Asia.  And because we're in a high elevation region, we actually get an extra month of rain on the front and back-end of the monsoon.  Every day isn't a downpour, but we can expect to have heavy rains for a few hours a day.  This rain is necessary for our coffee and it also provides us a chance to stop and rest.  (Maybe saying "chance to stop and rest" should be "forced to stop and rest").

I didn't grow up as a farmer, although I spent some time in cotton country during seminary.  There are many (MANY) things that I never understood about farming until moving to Asia.  One of the biggest realizations about being a farmer is how much weather impacts your life.  Your schedule is planned around crop cycles.  Your bank account is dependent by the market for your produce as well as how well the weather cooperates.  Life is determined by the weather.

• Too hot: plants die
• Too cold: plants die
• Too dry: plants die and/or low yield
• Too wet: fungus and poor quality

I think there's a reason why statistically people in rural farming communities are more religious.  Their life is dependent on forces that, for the most part, are totally out of their control.  They spend a lot of time in prayer.

I've learned over the past few years to embrace the calendar out here.  During rainy season, I can try and fight the weather and push my own agenda or accept the reality of the season and slow down.  After a few years of being here, I've learned it is a lot easier to just enjoy the rains and the slower pace.  

During this rainy season we've been able to host some guests.  Each of our team members has also been able to travel out of country for vacation and rest.  We've been able to sit down and map-out our game plan for the next several months as well as spend needed time connecting with supporters and friends back stateside.  And while rainy season makes many things inconvenient (all of those weeds on the farm still need to be cleaned), we have enjoyed the time to take a breath and spend time refocusing and gearing up for the next season.

Catching Up

I'll be the first one to admit I've been bad a keeping the blog updated.  We still send out our monthly newsletters, which if you are not on that email list and would like to be, please email us here.  Here's a quick recap of the past few months:

• Lots of construction on the coffee mill:  During the spring, which is dry season, we were able to get a lot accomplished on our wet-mill in the village.  We now have electricity in the mill, were able to dig a water well, and have everything plumbed to where we need it.  We've also been doing lots of land and fence work.  The village cows have learned how to jump our fence, so we're currently fixing that problem.  
• Coffee planting was a success!  We planted another acre+ of coffee in June.  This was our second year to plant coffee on our farm, and it went so much smoother than last year.  I believe that most of this is due to our local farm manager and his willingness to learn the process and help train other workers in the village.  This past year we've started to introduce new coffee varietals to our farm that we cannot find locally.  The plan is to use these new varieties for growing coffee seed, which we will then distribute to farmers in the village.  They will then give us back seedlings when their coffee starts to produce in a few years (which we'll then give to other farmers and start the process over again).  By doing this, we're helping create diversity in the coffee economy here and hopefully giving farmers new ways to approach a changing marketplace.  Plus it makes it easier for us to find and buy great coffee to send to America.
• We've also hired on a new assistant farm manager.  One of our good friends in the village has worked with us on and off for over a year now.  The plan has always been to bring him on to our team once the time was right.  This past month we were able to hire him on part-time to help our farm manager with all the work.  The goal is that we'll bring him on full-time this next year and hopefully he'll be a big part of what we're trying to do there in the village.  I'm looking forward to sharing more about his story in the future.

Currently here we're in the middle of rainy season, which means we've all be able to take a bit of a break.  Once the rains stop in another month, we'll start moving forward on more construction on our mill and planning out what harvest looks like this fall.  We're also hoping to start construction on an office/training center in the village.  I'm sure there will be a lot more updates on all this in the future, and I'll make sure to blog about it a little more often.