Finca Perla del Valle

María Fanny Guerrero Cañar inherited Perla del Valle from her parents in 1995 and has been working the farm with the help of her husband and son ever since. It was María's father who named the farm, Perla del Valle, as he used to say that the land was as beautiful as a pearl. María has done a lot of work in the last couple of years refurbishing her micro-beneficio including tiling the holding and fermentation tanks where the coffee is processed. The farms in this area of Nariño are very small in comparison to other parts of Colombia. María has recently extended hers to one hectare which means she now has 4000 trees and can produce almost 4000 kgs of coffee in a year. A couple of years ago, María and her husband bought a neighbour’s farm called Finca Girasol. Girasol has approximately two hectares planted with two cultivars: Cenicafe 1 and Castillo Tambo. Perla del Valle has been one of the stalwarts of our competition in Nariño for several years. This crop, as we were still unable to hold our competitions, we have bought coffee from our regular contributors in this region using our direct allocation system.