Coffee has been cultivated in Bolivia for hundreds of years, but now a new generation of coffee farmers dedicated to producing high-quality coffee are taking the stage in Bolivia. For the first time in the country’s history, green coffee production has funding and support from the federal government, fueling the search for knowledge among dedicated young coffee professionals. The epicenter in the rise of Bolivian specialty coffee is in the Yungas region, where most farms were first established after a wave of migration to the region caused by Bolivia’s Agrarian Revolution in the 1950s. And nearly a century later this lot emerges from the Mamani family farm as the benchmark for the region’s profile. The 27-acre farm called El Mirador is located near Caranaví. The Mamani family has been growing coffee in the greater Yungas region of Bolivia for over 50 years. During the harvest, cherries are carefully selected, depulps, fermented in sealed tanks, washed and then the parchment is dried on patios and raised beds. Since Bolivia is a landlocked coffee producing country, farmers need extra help getting their coffee to the international market. AGRICAFE deserves a lot of credit for their dedication to delivering Bolivia's coffee potential to the international market. AGRICAFE was established in 1986 and is a family business that manages 12 of its own farms and also supports other small farms across Caranaví and Nor Yungas. Their smallholder program, “Sol de Mañana”, began in 2013 with 10 producers and a curriculum focused on nursery and farm management, and specialty harvesting. Organic fertilizers were made available to participants at half price and each individual coffee tree was tracked for pruning, inputs, productivity and picking. This granular attention to detail has improved productivity and quality and carries over to the logistics of moving coffee to the dry-mill where quality and traceability are protected during the preparation for export.
