Finca Los Cabécares

Finca Los Cabécares was established by Pompilio's parents in the 1920s and over the years it has been uncertified organic, certified organic, and is now both uncertified and mostly organic. Pompilio Heriberto and his son Heriberto Marín have had a terrible time on the farm over the last few years and they have worked incredibly hard to keep the farm in production. A few years ago, the farm was devastated by Roya (Coffee Leaf Rust), a fungus which attacks the leaves of the trees, leaving the trees unable to photosynthesise and develop a crop. The fungus can move quickly through a plantation and the trees often die as a result. During this time, Pompilio wasn’t able to maintain his organic certification as none of the permitted herbicides or extra fertilizers were effective or even affordable. In order to halt the disease and re-establish the farm they have had to use uncertified methods and have therefore lost their certification. They have also lost 90% of their farm’s productivity. Now, Pompilio and Heriberto are concentrating on rejuvenating one small section of the farm at a time. It is slow going. The shade-trees which help protect the coffee were also attacked by a similar fungus and they have been planting new cedar and oak as well as new planting from some of the older Bourbon and Typica plants on the farm. Don Pompilio is keen for us to understand that although they cannot afford the costs and bureaucratic time to recertify organic, they continue to farm as holistically as possible, using methods built up over years of farming organically with soil health and farm diversity being the foundations for each decision.