"In many ways, Jhon Jairo Gomez is the prototypical example of the type of producer Semilla seeks to meet and advocate for.

Despite possessing some of the best quality coffee we’ve ever encountered in Colombia, he sold his entirely en verde (depulped and not dried, sold wet) until the 2019/2020 main harvest when we purchased one 70kg bag from him, which was all the coffee he could afford to keep aside, as well as all he could effectively process due to a lack of infrastructure.
Selling en verde continues to be a very common practice in San Agustin, with producers bringing their coffees down to the square on Sunday mornings where buyers bark out prices and engage in bidding wars for this raw product that they will dry and then sell themselves at a profit.

Until the early 2000s, this was how almost all producers in the area sold their coffee, as it was still a viable way to make a living.
Now, with increased production costs and a lowered global coffee price, selling this way means taking about 50% of the daily market price which means most producers are actively losing money in exchange for lowered risk and labor input on their end. There are many producers who don’t see the value in investing and taking this risk in selling in parchment, however, with coffee of the quality Jhon possesses, it’s nearly tragic to think of the quality that was sold for nothing in the past.

Previously, Jhon grew and sold long beans, however the heavy pesticides he had to use led him to develop serious health issues. Whether it was a condition that lay nascent or not, he’s now been officially diagnosed as epileptic, after a series of scary seizures including some at the cupping table as recently as this past harvest. Given his worsening health, Jhon acquired his Tabi seeds from an organic producer and began to grow coffee instead, which required no fumigation thanks to his very high altitude and low temperatures.
To make things even more difficult for Jhon, he lives only with his brother, as his parents have both passed away. While it’s normally common for a coffee growing family to rely on one another in the field as well as in the preparation of food, Jhon has been left to do all of this with only the help of his brother, making things very difficult for him.
It’s been our absolute pleasure to see him grow as a coffee producer and for him to
develop a close bond with the Ortega Gomez family. They’ve taken him under their wing and Jhon is always found at their home, cupping, drinking coffee, or just discussing life. As he told Esnaider during a visit to his farm this harvest, coffee is now the motor of his life. “If I didn’t have this plot, I wouldn’t be here,” he said. “It gives me great happiness to have been recognized and keeps me going.”

In a few short years, the Monkaaba project has become a integral part of Jhon’s life. Not only has he been able to develop a strong client base for his coffees, he’s also found a strong community and he can be found nearly every day in the Monkaaba bodega and cupping lab. He’s taken on a variety of tasks including sample roasting and cupping to managing coffee deliveries and is always present as Esnaider and Didier make their visits to farms to connect with the growers associated with the project.
On the farm level, Jhon’s also been able to make some big investments. When we first bought from him, his depulper was 25 years old and was unable to be attached to a motor, meaning he had to manually depulp all his coffee.

In the vereda of El Rosario, where we hope to focus more of our efforts in the future, virtually all of these producers sell in the same way — depulped and wet — so he didn’t even have a neighbour to rely on.
In fact, in order to successfully dry the parchment for his first coffees he had to bring it down the mountain to Esnaider’s farm where he used their drying beds.

Now Jhon has built himself an entire beneficio including a motorized depulper, constructed a new solar dryer at his house, and has begun planting Pink Bourbon in the pursuit of another high quality variety that he hopes can push his small farm project further.
Jhon is the kind of producer Semilla was created to support, and we’ve been thrilled to see his growth. We will not say this is all easy. Growing Tabi in the ice cold climate where his farm sits is no easy feat - the production is limited and the maturation is very slow. While this bodes well for quality, it doesn’t bode well for quantity and as we know by now, it’s crucial that smallholders develop some steady volume of production combined with high prices in order to be sustainable.

We are proud to be Jhon’s partner, and hope you are too.

About Monkaaba
Monkaaba is a smallholder coffee grower empowerment initiative based in San Agustin and led by Esnaider Ortega Gomez and select other growers who have worked for many years to sell their coffee as specialty. Many of them are associated loosely or directly with the Los Naranjos group and have in recent years begun to feel that they would like to develop more autonomy over the coffee production as well as involvement in its marketing and sale.
Monkaaba’s goal then is to assist other growers in the area to not only find a better
market for their coffee, one that pays a solid price, but also to invest in the knowledge and skill of producers in a way that ensures their future success.

The idea for this came to Esnaider thanks to his experience over the last ten years
working as a sample roaster and cupper. While he was always happy to see producers receive a solid price for their coffees through this exporter, he noticed that there was very little understanding at the buyer level of what went into coffee production.

Too often he watched coffees produced by people he knew be rejected due to a single cupping session, and for this producer to receive little explanation of why it was rejected or what could be improved. What worried him the most was how this process could be confusing or demotivating to producers seeking to enter the specialty market, and he knew there had to be many who were being overlooked as a result.
Over Semilla’s time getting to know Esnaider, he has been nothing but concerned in theoverall well being of all coffee producers in Huila. Rather than focusing only on his own success as a grower, he wants to see all those around him engaged in sustainable, meaningful relationships.

Now with Monkaaba, he commits himself to this on the daily. Not only does he hold weekly cupping sessions for all producers who would like to have their samples evaluated, but he also invites all those willing and interested to come and cup
alongside him.
The early results have been amazing as he’s collected coffees from all over the area
and hosted growers of all levels of experience and age at his farm, to cup and to
discuss in depth about their goals and dreams and challenges.
This type of project, we believe, is vital to the future of specialty coffee as a whole and is exactly what Semilla always seeks to support. We wish to see producers engaged in learning about their own product and understanding how to improve it, while our role is then to give feedback and to serve as a conduit of this work to you, the roaster, such that we can develop stronger, more authentic relationships together. "