Inocenta Cobon Matias
Santo Domingo

Inocenta lives in the mountains of Huehuetenango, Guatemala, known as one of the world’s best coffee growing areas. She grew up on a small farm in the same area that her parents grew corn and beans. She married Adrian at the early age of 17, and together they began to grow coffee. They raised eight children, all adults now, and today her youngest son Ogler helps her with the coffee farm. Her daughters Blondi and Orfa live nearby and also grow coffee for Farmer to Farmer.

Inocenta is 65 years old and due to her Diabetes, she finds it more difficult to do all the coffee growing work, but her son is a big help. She likes growing coffee and being out in the fields. Her coffee is shade-grown. The family grows corn, beans, vegetables, fruit and avocado trees for their own consumption. They also raise chickens. She has about 2.75 acres of coffee and most of it is grown organically. She’s been a member of the Asociación Unión de Pequeños Caficultores (UPC) for seven years. UPC has a women’s coffee growers group from which we purchase our coffee. The women’s group has workshops and classes on things such as how to grow better coffee, how to improve the soil, women’s rights, and leadership. The women learn from each other and also are a great support for each other.

When I spoke to Inocente recently, she talked about how she is grateful to be selling her coffee to F2F for the better price she receives. She said the higher price F2F pays is a big help. She has more money for her family’s needs and they have been able to improve their lives.

We spoke about the Covid-19 pandemic and how this has affected our coffee sales. This year we won’t be able to buy as much coffee as last year. I apologized for this. Inocenta said they understand and that we all have to have patience that things will improve. I was glad to hear that they haven’t had a lot of Covid in their community. They live very remote and don’t have much contact with people outside their family or nearby neighbors.