In his coffee business, Renato likes to work with people from the community. He believes that
finding good people to work with is hard but fundamental if you want to maintain good quality.
He started producing specialty coffee 5 years ago when Caravela Coffee first arrived in La Palma.
Renato had the varieties and was willing to work towards producing the best quality. He wanted
to receive the correct knowledge and technical assistance to start making the necessary changes
on his farm. As he started learning more about specialty coffees, he started working with other
producers and guiding them towards practice, experimentation and better techniques.
Renato feels very proud of his farm because thanks to the work he has carried out, he has been
able to offer his family economic sustainability. “I can’t say that I’m better than others, but what I
can say is that we are very careful with our processes and we do our best to achieve the best
quality. My greatest joy is seeing my coffee trees blooming, it is such a magical experience.”
In the short term, Renato is planning to buy more land, to plant more coffee and more trees for
shading. He is also aware that he will need to expand his post-harvest and drying infrastructure
accordingly, to the increase quantity without forgetting quality. In order to achieve this, he says:
“it is very important to save some of the extra income that specialty coffee have given us, being
organized with the profits from our sales allows us to invest in the future growth of the farm.”