I'm your neighbor in Nicaragua. Bought 120 manzanas of a forest in Jinotega Nicaragua 8 years ago and now has some 40 manzanas of coffee all started from a bag of seeds. I do it long distance farming from N. California. Lots of money, investments, so had to keep my day job to finance the farm! So to see your farm reminded me of my early years!!
Wow that's great. Yes it cost lots of money to start from the ground up. We are just reaching our 5th year of growth this year so we should start making money. I like to be hands on so I am excited to be in HND and run things. Send me an email with your contact info so maybe we can connect someday. [email protected]
Not yet. We've been negotiating for a new piece of land to put one and our headquarters. If it works out, it's going to be awesome!! Hopefully next time your around we'll be ready!
Daniel, are you importing your own coffee back to the US. Is there a freight forwarder you are using for small quantities or are you just selling it local or to an exporter. I've found it still difficult to bring in 3000-4000 lbs of beans, seems like a lot of freight forwarder don't want to deal with less than a container.
No up to this point we've just sold locally, but this is our first year of full yield and we are keeping it in house this year. You are right, small shipments are hard. We are working towards getting our export license.
In Nicaragua, we do it all through our Beneficio/Dry Mill which takes care of everything for us, drying, processing, storage, export, though, yeah there is a charge of $16 per quintal (100 lbs) of green coffee processed. But good quality these days, 78-84 points can fetch +40-60 over the NY"C" right now. but still, factor in the labor, fertilizer, harvest cost....unless we roast it ourselves, not much is left.
We have friends near the Capitol of HND that do their coffee the same as you. Our business plan is to control every aspect (pick, pulp, wash, dry, store, roast, bag & sell) until the consumer is drinking it. We've been working towards it for 7 yrs and we're getting there little by little.