José Mario Rodezno, Finca Jimilile

So I've been growing coffee for about two decades.

Before me, my parents also grew coffee, but when I was growing up we lived in a remote area and it wasn't easy to sell our beans. That's why I couldn't go to high school either. All the schools were too far away, and anyway, there wasn't enough money for the bus fare or books. So my parents also grew a variety of fruits and vegetables to support our family, and I started working with them when I was still a child.

This is the main reason why I decided to create my own farm—and my own family!—in a more accessible area. In fact, my wife owns 0.7 hectares, and I own a nearby 1.3-hectare plot, so together we have 2 hectares of land to work.

We also have four adult daughters who work with us during the harvest. They pick the grain, wash and pulp it, and also dry the batches in our yard when my wife and I are busy on the farm. Honestly, we wouldn't know what to do without them! It's hard work for everyone in our family, but we're proud to earn an honest living and enjoy a lot of freedom because we're our own bosses; no one else decides for us what to do, when, or how.

Our goal is to sell as much of our coffee as possible at a higher price, because it's the only way to ensure we can reinvest some of the revenue in maintaining our land and making improvements. In fact, we'd love to create better conditions for processing our coffee, such as building a solar dryer or upgrading our wet processing facilities.

But what matters most is our well-being as a family and the harmony we enjoy together, whether we're working the land or relaxing at home. We also keep some beehives, as pollination is becoming increasingly difficult. Luckily, I'm an avid carpenter, so I was able to build my own hives, and now we also enjoy the honey produced by the bees.

Besides doing carpentry in my free time, I love playing football. When I was younger, I played on a team, and now that I'm no longer part of a club, I still play whenever we can with friends and acquaintances from our town. As much as I love my work, I also need time to relax and unwind. And after every match, I treat myself to a well-deserved cup of my own coffee in the shade of our patio!