Continuing our series on coffee production around the world, we take a look at Colombia in South America, probably the part of the world most associated with coffee.
Colombia ranks very highly in terms of production, and is the second biggest producer of Arabica beans which are of higher quality than robustica. There are almost 600,000 coffee producers in Colombia and the cultivation, trading, processing, transportation and marketing of the beans provides employment for many. Colombian coffee is mostly grown on thousands of small family-run farms, owing to the terrain which is rugged and lacking in the space needed for large commercial farms. While this environment produces good quality beans, it makes transport to the processing centres very difficult. thousands of small family coffee farms across the country. An extremely rugged landscape provides the perfect natural environment for the growth of the coffee. But a terrain so rugged has also made it historically difficult to transport the harvested coffee beans to production and shipment centers. The region is also subject to occasional earthquakes, which destroy the infrastructure of the roads so that even today the most practical form of transport is often Jeep or mule train.
As many varieties of Colombian coffee beans are naturally resistant to crop diseases, there’s been a lot of enthusiasm in recent years about producing organic coffee which is now forming a small but significant part of the market.
Colombia’s coffee market is regulated by the Colombian Coffee Federation, which guarantees growers a minimum price for their crops. The Federation also invests in education, healthcare, transportation and transportation for coffee growers, and supports environmentally friendly growing techniques.
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