Banco Gotete, Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia | FILTER

Details:

This exceptional lot was processed, dry milled and exported by Legu Trading. The coffee was grown by smallholder farmers living around the town of Banco Gotete in Gedeo County, Yirgacheffe region. Most contributing farmers own less than a hectare of land, and they grow coffee simply as a backyard cash crop. Coffee will usually be interspersed with other subsistence crops, such as sweet potato, mangos and avocados. Income from coffee is important but minimal for most farmers due to the small size of their farms. As such, inputs are minimal – most coffee grown in the region is 100% organic, though not certified, as farmers simply don’t have the money to apply chemical fertilisers, pesticides or herbicides. Varieties of coffee grown here are traditionally referred to as ‘heirloom’ by exporters – a catchall terminology which often masks the wide assortment of varieties that may be present within various regions...even, within farms. Many of these varieties will have been developed by Ethiopia’s Jimma Agricultural Research Centre (JARC), which, since the late  1960s, has worked to develop resistant and tasty varieties for the Ethiopian coffee industry and also to provide the agricultural extension training needed to cultivate them.