Ernesto Hernández

We are a very close family, my wife, our two daughters and I.

Our eldest daughter is 22 and works for the municipality, and our youngest is 16. She's in high school. Most of the year, I work on our farm myself. We have about a hectare, so it's not very big, and I can manage it by myself.

However, during harvest season, we usually work as a family. My youngest daughter has school holidays from the end of November until the beginning of February, which is great because that's exactly when we harvest our crop. She loves helping with picking, washing, and sorting. She and my wife take care of all that, while I handle the heavier tasks, like maintenance and carrying the sacks of coffee to the car.

Since we have so little land, I also work as a construction worker's assistant. Our family couldn't live solely on the profits from our coffee, not even in the best of times, like the 2021/22 harvest, when the price of coffee nearly doubled compared to the previous year. Costs have also skyrocketed, and in previous years we often had to sell below our own production costs.

I'm glad to have this job in construction, since people always want to build something, regardless of the country's economic situation. In fact, approximately 10% of Hondurans live in the United States, most of them undocumented, and send money back to Honduras every month to build a house for their family, or for when they return to Honduras later.

So, this means a more reliable source of income for me, although I prefer to work my own land. Of course, because it's mine and offers more freedom. But also because I prefer working in the fields and growing good coffee. Now that I've sold a microlot to a specialty coffee importer in Taiwan (in 2022), I feel more optimistic and excited about my future as a coffee farmer.

Although I'm not so young anymore, I feel I still have a lot to learn and will continue preparing micro-lots for the upcoming harvests. It requires more effort, but it's also a source of pride and the only way to increase the price buyers are willing to pay per pound of coffee.

I hope my youngest daughter will want to take over the farm later on, but I'm not sure she will. It's probably better for her to have a stable job, like her older sister. In any case, none of this changes the harmony in our family; we always support each other regardless of the circumstances, and our daughters are free to choose their own path and build their own future.