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Greetings from Brazil -
9/13/2010
Posted By:
Steve Hawthorne
On Sunday morning, I arrived in Brazil and struck out on a week long tour of the Cerrado region. Our first full day was a lot of fun and very educational.
The Cerrado region is comprised of 55 counties in the south eastern part of Brazil. There are a total of 3500 coffee producers in the region. Today I visited Fazendas Paraiso (Fazendas is Portuguese for "farm"), located in the city of Araguari and the state of Minas Gerais. Paraiso is a very lovely farm that covers 180 hectares (approximately 445 acres). Unlike the Central American farms that I've visited in the past, farms here in Brazil are very flat. (see the photo below on the left).
Fazendas Paraiso is a member of the COOCACER cooperative which is also hedquartered in Araguari. The cooperative provides dry milling (the final stage of coffee processing) and warehouse services to its members at a minimal cost. While visiting the cooperative offices, our group was treated to a presentation on the online traceability program that is being instituted by the Cerrado Coffee Federation. Using this software, importers in the United States (and around the world) can enter barcode number form a bag of unroasted coffee into an online system. The system will provide the farm name, location, farm statistics, coffee quality scores, and a geopositioned map of where the coffee came from. This is a great step for the Cerrado region in being able to offer importers, roasters and consumers detailed information on the origins of their coffee. It was a real pleasure to be able to see this system coming together.
Tomorow we are off to explore more farms and cooperatives. I'm excited to see more of Brazil and share what I've learned along the way!
Sip slowly,
Steve
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Fazendas Paraiso |
Coffee break at Fazendas Paraiso |
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