History of Care  From the day a young German immigrant with his treasured coffee plants settled in the rainforest mountains near Matagalpa, Nicaragua, five generations of descendants have carefully tended the fincas with environmental sensitivity. For almost a hundred years, our farms have been more concerned with goodagricultural practices, clean water and rainforest stewardship than any other farms in the region.

This ambitious and conscientious coffee producer found that his love of the land and coffee was broadened by the love of the native people and their culture. Successive generations have made it a priority to improve the working conditions and lives of those who help produce coffee by paying higher wages, providing better housing, serving more nutritious food, and supporting education in one of the poorest countries in the Americas. These efforts promote stable and prosperous farm families and communities.

If you visited our farms, you would see the masonry worker housing of one generation, the retention ponds of another, the contour plantings of another, the community kitchens of yet another, and schools built by another. You might be surprised to see families dining on spotless tiled tables. The cooks might tell you that workers no longer cut down valuable trees for firewood, now that all the kitchens have modern propane stoves. You may be surprised to see there is a fully stocked infirmary with a full-time nurse who rotates among the farms on a weekly basis. Fara Coffee sponsors monthly visits from traveling medical teams led by a doctor, and emergency situations receive rapid transport to a local hospital.

If you chatted with the civic leaders around Matagalpa, you might hear about the soccer fields and municipal gymnasium that Fara Café quietly facilitated or the hundreds of neo-natal masks that were brought down in suitcases to replace makeshift masks of plastic cups, Scotch tape, and tubing. You would surely be told how Fara Coffee stepped up, again quietly, in the midst of a medical strike and public health meltdown with a large contribution of critical medical equipment and supplies. 

Through generations of coffee production, the Fara Coffee family understands that it is our responsibility to aid socioeconomic progress, beginning with local communities.

In 2004, Fara Coffee raised the bar for itself — with a proactive objective to have the most environmentally sensitive and socially responsible coffee fincas in all of Nicaragua. Realizing that our efforts needed concentration and increased responsiveness to individual issues, we began a comprehensive look at our operations with the assistance of a leading organization dedicated to environmental and social stewardship — The Rainforest Alliance  Sustainable agriculture is at the center of the Rainforest Alliance's efforts. They aim to conserve ecosystems by protecting healthy soils, rivers and wildlife and promote dignified living conditions for farm workers and neighboring rural communities.

The rapid and unsustainable growth of the agriculture industry in recent years caused rampant deforestation and careless agrochemical use. Today, agriculture is the number one cause of ecosystem destruction and species loss worldwide. Agriculture occupies approximately one-third of the Earth's total landscape and uses more land and freshwater than any other human activity in the world. The impact goes well beyond the environment. As a major employer, the farming industry also affects social, economic and cultural conditions. Because of agriculture's widespread influence, the Rainforest Alliance works directly with those who use the land, primarily farmers, to promote economically viable, environmentally sound and socially equitable agriculture. Sustainable farms have minimal environmental footprints, serve as good neighbors to human and wildlife communities and are integral pieces of regional conservation initiatives. Of almost 25 million coffee farmers in the world only fourteen producers have four of their farms individually certified by the Rainforest Alliance. Fara Coffee has the honor of being among those enlightened producers and is especially proud to be the only grower in Nicaragua meeting the rigorous standards for four fincas, individually.