Nespresso Columbia Project Day 2

Wednesday, May 30 – Day 2: Nespresso AAA Technician Shadowing
Blog by Gunnar Norback

What a great day! We woke up at 5:30 AM to a fresh breakfast cooked by my wonderful hosts, Hernando and Marina. We then walked down the road to meet the Jeep that would take us to our Nespresso technician that we would be spending the day with, touring around different farms. There are four Nespresso technicians responsible for surveying each of Nespresso’s farms in Jardín; mine was Maria.
On the way to farmer Carlos, our first stop of the day, we paused to examine trans-valley cable cars. Some are used to carry coffee and others are for people. I was able to get a good idea of how they worked to better my understanding and hopefully benefit the construction of more throughout Jardin as part of PANGAEA’s contributions to this community and the sustainability of this project.

Once we arrived at Carlos’s farm we toured the property taking note of specific quality control check points. Carlos showed us how he is sustainable in his coffee farming routine. We saw how he filters the wastewater from his house and the also studied both the source and final destination of water used in his coffee washing station (AKA the “benificio”). Later we were treated to a lunch cooked by Carlos’s wife. After lunch we ventured across the street to a neighboring farm. Today, I learned a lot from our technician about just what separates a Rainforest Alliance certified Nespresso AAA farms from the average Colombian plantation. I cannot wait to learn more tomorrow. I am glad I saw the cable car as I really think their implementation throughout the region would be beneficial to Nespresso’s AAA mission. From our walk today the wheels are turning about a number of environmental issues here, in the way of wastewater sanitation and proper disposal, mountain landslide prevention, CO2 emission reduction, and transportation efficiency improvement.