Much of the world’s coffee production takes place in tropical climates, therefore the Dominican Republic is among the world’s leaders in this industry.
My hometown La Vega is located in a very fertile valley and is surrounded by the main mountain chain, the Cordillera Central, of the island La Hispaniola, which is shared with Haiti and which is one of the regions where coffee is grown.
This industry is made up of both men and women, although women do make up a smaller percentage of the production workers.
I met one of them and she lives in the city of Jarabacoa, located at La Cordillera Central and situated to 1,500 meters above sea level. María is a coffee production worker, who comes from the same city as the renowned author Julia Alvarez, 
who wrote a novel «A cafecito Story» that talks about coffee grown in this area. The book is titled “A Cafecito Story”, and in case you may want to read it you can buy it and learn more about this crop production.
On the other hand, I work in an institution that is implementing a project, “Healthy and environmentally friendly coffee”. The area where this coffee is grown is called Guarey, also located in the main mountain chain, La Cordillera Central at some 500 meters above sea level.
Last November in 2019, the community inaugurated the first part of the project. This first part involved the construction of a coffee processing plant, which washes and filters out coffee skim, and dries the seeds. Also, the project contemplated an area for producing organic fertilizer or compost made by earthworms. In addition, the community had an association of coffee producers which later will work to get the coffee certified as organic. That certification will come only after they implement a whole program of organic fertilization and production processes only, all thanks to the use of earthworm compost.
At this moment, I feel very happy because I have had the opportunity to work with this project, since it is my first job opportunity and also because it is a mixture of responsibilities, not only in the agriculture area, which is my career focus, but in community development as well, which is something I love and am deeply passionate about.
Since I started visiting this community, I have fallen in love with the people, mostly because even though they live in very poor conditions, they always show a smile and treat everybody with all the love and respect. I have also fallen in love with the project because of the positive impact it is having on the people of the community as they feel more supported. The project will also bring to the community better living conditions, especially now that they are able to engage in fair trade commercialization of the coffee they produce and earn higher profits for each 50 kilograms of coffee produced.
In my estimation, it has been a great pleasure to be part of this project, which is not only focused on development and economical sustainability for people, but because is giving back to the people of the communities more hope and education about environmental sustainability.
Finally, I hope that when you purchase some coffee, you will remember this story; specifically that you will consider the places where the coffee you are purchasing comes from and take into account whether the coffee was produced by an organization that helped the producers get a fair payment for their product and if the project integrated women into the production process.
Every time you take a sip of café and the aroma invades your nose, and transports you to the mountains, that is because it is made possible by people like these.
Café…
Pamela Angeles 