Hector Ramirez, El Aguacate Farm

San Jerónimo is a small but beautiful village hidden deep in the Honduran countryside. In fact, it's closer to the Guatemalan border, which is only two kilometers away, than to the nearest Honduran city, which is an hour and a half away by car. That is, for someone who has a car.

The remote location offers several advantages. San Jerónimo is peaceful, surrounded by nature, and everyone in the small community supports one another, forging strong, lifelong bonds. But there are also disadvantages. Héctor and his fellow farmers have to drive 2.5 hours to deliver their coffee to the nearest Cafesmo warehouse. They have no cell phone service and rely on weak Wi-Fi signals to communicate and receive information about the market and the world in general.

Fortunately, Héctor is happy where he lives, with his wife of many years, his two adult children, and his grandchildren. Furthermore, both the village and his farm are situated at an ideal altitude of 1,700 meters. The climate is pleasant year-round and offers perfect conditions for growing coffee in this part of the country. Héctor began cultivating his own coffee when he was 25 years old, in 1987. Before that, he worked on his father's land, who was also a small coffee producer. Now that he is older, he relies on his two adult children to help him on the farm. The family owns three hectares of coffee plots, where they cultivate Catimor, Lempira, and IH-Café 90 varieties.

Shade is plentiful, mainly from trees that grow naturally in the region, but Héctor's children have also planted some orange trees, and more recently, avocado trees. There is also some corn and beans growing along the border of the coffee plot. All these additional crops are for the family's own consumption and to sell any surplus they may produce.

In 2021, Héctor and 15 other coffee farmers from San Jerónimo decided to become members of Cafesmo. They had heard about the organization and were looking for more direct access to the market, despite their remote location. That's how Héctor sold his first washed microlot to a specialty coffee importer in Taiwan in early 2022. It's a relief to receive a better reward for all the extra effort put into producing higher-quality coffee, and it also generates greater motivation and enthusiasm to keep going.

Not only for Hector himself, but also for his children, who represent the new generation and are now building a life for their own families.