Coffee farmers bounce back

A focus on higher quality beans and chemical-free farming methods has helped fuel a resurgence in coffee farming in Guatemala.

BY MARY JORDAN

Washington Post Service

AMATITLAN, Guatemala - When a global glut drove the price of coffee beans to a historic low five years ago, Julio Flores almost shuttered the hillside coffee farm that had been in his family for four generations. Today, Flores' farm is prospering as soaring demand for premium coffee brings new wealth to the old fields of Central America.

"We fought and fought and focused on higher quality, and we have left the crisis behind us," said Flores, 49, wearing jeans and a straw hat as he walked around his leafy, seven-foot-tall coffee plants with beans ripening for a December harvest.

What saved his farm was a clearer understanding that First World consumers want only the best beans in their cappuccinos and lattes, and that they're willing to pay for high quality, Flores said. So he stopped using chemical fertilizers and pesticides and tended more carefully to his mile-high coffee plants.

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