La Cueva (Spanish for “Cave”) is a small community located in the Tablon de Gomez municipality, with approximately 200 people. La Cueva is a community with a deep-rooted tradition of ecological protection. All producers preserve part of their farm as untouchable forest. They also leave native plants untouched in places where waterways originate and keep livestock out of those areas. They are hyperaware that climate change is a real problem and that as it worsens, their community and others like it will bear the earliest and most severe consequences.
The producers here focus primarily on coffee, intercropping with other fruit trees that they use for shade like avocado and lemon. The coffee-growing area of La Cueva reaches between 1200 and 1700 meters above sea level.
Olmedo farms 2 hectares at his farm El Pindal, where he grows Castilla and Colombia coffee varieties as well as bananas. After a selective harvest, the coffee is sent to cement tanks where it is fermented for 15 to 17 hours, then dried on patios or raised beds between 8-12 days.
Olmedo lives with his brother Alirio and his mother in La Cueva. His farm El Pindal does not have road access so they have to carry all their coffee to the nearest part of the road. Olmedo has been producing coffee for the last 19 years.
