Carlos Erazo Nariño FW

Brothers Carlos and Francisco Fabián Erazo inherited Finca El Pará from their father, who purchased the land in the mid-1900s. The farm sits high in the Andean mountains at the nexus where the mountain chain splits into three separate ranges that together cover half of Colombia's total land area. Finca El Pará’s proximity to the equator means that it experiences clearly marked seasonal weather. The rainy season runs from March to June and again from September to December. The rest of the year is characterized by sunny days. The main harvest, which follows the first rainy season, accounts for about 90% of the farm’s annual production. The remaining production occurs during the mitaca (fly crop) harvest following the second annual rainy season.

Carlos and Francisco work with Caterine Lorena Arturo Solarte, who heads the farm’s quality control department. Caterine and Carlos work with their agronomists to perform soil analysis and to improve planting systems and renovation schedules. They ensure that Finca El Pará follows Good Agricultural Practices during the season and harvest.

With a degree in chemistry, Caterine is also in charge of quality control during every step of the post-harvest process. Her knowledge has helped improve El Pará's post-harvest quality control.

Finca El Pará is enrolled in a CENICAFE program for experiments with disease-resistant varieties and participating in a program focused on planting shade trees to combat the effects of climate change. They have also worked with the University of Agronomy of Nariño to study the applications of organic fertilizer produced by Californian worms.

Carlos & Francisco are dedicated to maintaining high-quality coffee production by frequently renovating their rootstock. Under their watch, Finca El Pará has been carefully separated into 15 lots that make it easier to keep track of the farm renovation schedule and experiment with new varieties.

Due to a severe coffee leaf rust (CLR) infestation in 2009, the farm’s coffee trees are relatively young. At the time of the CLR infestation, many of the trees on the farm were Yellow Bourbon and Caturra varieties planted by their father. Caturra and Bourbon varieties are generally much more susceptible to CLR than disease-resistant varieties like Castillo and Colombia.

Beyond renovating their farm to recover from CLR, Finca El Pará was one of the farms that contributed to farmers’ success post-2009 CLR infestation by participating in the Catholic Relief Services’ Coffeelands sensory trial that compared the cup quality of Castillo and Caturra variety coffees. (We’ve written about the implications of this trial for farmers around the globe.)

Cherry is selectively handpicked by a team of up to 60 skilled pickers. Cherry is floated and unripe and visibly damaged cherry is removed. The farm’s 2 pulpers can pulp up to 3,000 kg of cherry per hour.

Carlos & Francisco follow their father’s pursuit of excellence at Finca El Pará by continuously exploring improvements for post-harvest practices. Since the early 2000s, they have been focused on reducing wastewater in processing by using a BECOLSUB module.  

After pulping, coffee is transferred from to the BECOLSUB module for water-free “washing.” The machine allows them to control the exact amount of mucilage removed during the process. For this Fully washed coffee, they intentionally leave on 10% of mucilage to add complexity during fermentation without creating extra water waste. The parchment with this small amount of remaining mucilage in dry fermented in tanks for 12 hours.

After this, the parchment sent through a grading channel that simultaneously removed remaining mucilage and grades parchment by density. There are 4 ways Finca El Pará dries parchment: on patios, drying sieves, on elbas (a shade drying system using rooftop-beds) and in a mechanical dryer.

The Nariño department sits in the far south of Colombia. It borders Ecuador and the high Andean peaks. Its closeness to the equator enables coffee cultivation at very high altitudes. Many farms are located at heights surpassing 2,000 meters above sea level. 

While coffee growing is not traditionally seen at such high altitudes, it is possible in Nariño thanks to plenty of sunlight, dependable and frequent rainfall, and rich soils. Furthermore, the landscape helps ensure nights do not get too cold for growing cherry. The heat that accumulates in the bottom of canyons rises into the mountains at night, protecting cherry from the extreme nighttime cold that comes with such a high altitude.

There are no less than three volcanoes in the Cordillera Occidental, a branch of the Andes mountains in Colombia. These volcanoes reach altitudes as high as 4,700 meters above sea level. While volcanic activity can sometimes present hazards to life and coffee farming, the rich volcanic soil full of nutrients provides an excellent growing medium for coffee plants. The nutrients, combined with lower temperatures helps to slowly form coffee fruits and concentrate their sugars. The result is complex, sweet and acidic coffees.