Mafafas’s farms are slightly larger than the surrounding areas we work in (although still very small), with an average lot size that is between 3-6 hectares per producer. It’s always been a coffee-growing area, but in recent years many coffee growers have shifted their trade towards livestock. This is because Mafafas is further north than the rest of the coffee growing towns, making it more susceptible to cold northern winds. 4 years ago, these cold winds caused a devastating frost over much of this community, killing off most of the coffee plants. As a result, Mafafas’s coffee plants are either younger or smaller due to large-scale pruning than those further south. Mafafas has a unique microclimate. In a matter of minutes it can shift from moderate heat to intense cold due to the altitude and northern winds. These drastic changes mean that producers have to adapt their farms with a specific array of shade trees and companion crops depending on their specific farm conditions.
While our early forays into Mexico started in Oaxaca, our more recent relationships in Chiapas and Veracruz are distinct in ways that offer incredible opportunity. Where Oaxaca features a landscape that in a lot of ways resembles Cusco in Peru (remote smallholders promising incredible quality potential and lacking proper access to appropriate prices through the specialty market), Chiapas and Veracruz have opened up avenues for relationships that look drastically different as access to the specialty market expands for producers and their communities thanks largely to the work of our importer and exporter partners at origin.
