Rosa Inés Ramírez Ochoa

Rosa Inés is a 70-year old coffee grower who lives with her husband, daughter and two grandchildren. She has been cultivating coffee on her 2.5 hectares of land for the past 40 years. By being a member of the cooperative, her coffee is Fair Trade certified.

Rosa Inés gives some examples on how Fair Trade requirements changed her farm management. She mentions: "On the trainings, we were taught the traditional farm cleaning practices and not to throw away the compost but to use it as an organic fertiliser". Also, she explains that an extensionist worker visits her farm up to twice per year to ensure that the farm meets the required standards. Following his advice, she does not use pesticides and rarely applies synthetic fertiliser which is safely stored. In addition, Rosa Inés performs several activities to enhance the sustainability of her farm. For instance, she has a nursery for new coffee seedlings, weeds manually with a machete and intercrops with banana and a few orange trees. To protect her coffee plants for the high temperatures in summer, she planted the local trees called guamo.  

Continuing her father's tradition, she sells all her coffee to the cooperative and registers all her harvest and keeps the receipts from selling her produce to the cooperative. She acknowledges much more can be done in this regard such as keeping track of the information of all processes at her farm.

Rosa Inés reacted a little hesitant after being introduced to blockchain: “I have not heard about this, it does sound excellent. But one needs to know how to handle the new technology and I am terrible with that. I would need to learn to use it and I am already old.” She is interested in knowing where her coffee is consumed and at what price it is sold. In addition, Rosa Inés liked the idea of making her village known in different countries. She would only use a blockchain-driven application if the benefits outweigh the costs and if she receives enough training: “I do not have the necessary equipment. But with the right support and approach that considers other farmers as well as my daughter's help with the equipment, it could work well".