Just so people can get an idea of who you guys are and what you're doing here. First off, if you could just say you guys are working here, then I'll as some questions. My name is Eva and my husband's name is Kurt. We're the owners of Hacienda Pomarrosa: the golden rose apple farm, in English. And we're a coffee farm. We're also a bed and have eight acres. We, of course, plant our coffee and everything from planting all the way to roasting and packing. We sell our coffee under our brand which is called Hacienda Pomarrosa. We also have some units which we rent out as a bed and breakfast. We also do Coffee tours-- we do them Monday through Saturday at 11am by reservation. Our coffee tour lasts about two hours. We start off with freshly brewed coffee and a homemade dessert that comes from our farm. Then my husband gives a talk or small lecture about the origins of coffee and the history of how it arrived in Puerto Rico. Then we walk our visitors through part of our farm to see where and how the coffee grows-- because coffee does not grow everywhere in the world, only in certain areas. So many people have never seen a coffee bush. Most people have no idea that its more of a fruit, right? Yeah So we walk them through part of the farm so that they could see the coffee bushes and then we take them to the area where we work our coffee and we show them all the steps in the machinery that we use since the coffee is picked from the bushes until it arrives and the cops. Then we finish off with coffee served in the form of espresso. So, like I said, our tour lasts 2 hours and we do it strictly by reservation and we charge 20 dollars per person. I was so happy to see that right after the storm you guys were right back up and working. Now I'm here and everything is beautiful around here. Its shows that there's some really resillient people here. This week we had some young people that own one of the caterpillar machines. They came by and they did work all over the farm. If we hadn't had them come, if they weren't able to help out Sandra Farms, who knows if they would've been able to harvest this year. Clearing all of those fields by machette takes a long long time and lots of labor. Right. It' s been great t see the community of everybody come together to help one another. Definitely, I mean we have a neighbor who has a small caterpillar and he was the one that opened the road for everybody--not only for us but for all the people that live in the community, so that they could go out to the highway and get their supplies. Gasoline, food and everything else. The workers that we have here on the farm were here two days after the storm clearing out the debris and cleaning. They have worked very intensely because my husband was very aware of that we couldn't just sit around and wait. We needed to clean up and get things started so that we could start receiving visitors again. So when people call me and ask "oh, are you are you open", I say we've been ready to receive visitors since December. Since the first week in December, we worked very hard for two months to get the farm in order. And there's still work to be done but as you can see, the farm is pretty much cleared up. How many workers do you usually have as fulltime workers. We have three: two that work the land and then our handyman. Our handyman also did cleaning up debris helping the guys. Wearing many hats. Definitely. So now we have three full time employees and they've been cleaning up the debris and assesing the damage to our coffee. Of seven thousand bushes we ended up only was fifteen hundred. Since then we've already planted 15,000 and within the next month or two we expect to plant some more. And where are you getting the seedlings from? For t he first 1,500 we went to a farmer who had had trees. Had a nursery? Yes, a nursery. We had bought from him the year before so he was our first choice. We went to thank God he still had trees, so we got the first fifteen hundred from him. Then when we went back again, he didn't have anymore. We have a friend who is managinging a small farm in Adjuntas and he planted some seeds for us--only for us. Those are the seedlings that we are getting to plant. I know Israel and some other farms that I've been with have had trouble buying seedlings and planting them, and having them stay. Alot of the seedlings grown at the government station are basically domesticated plants, so once you put them out in the natural environment, they don't last. Well, they have to be a cerain age. Usually trees that we buy from the government have to be very good but they are about a year old. So, we plant them them when they're about a year old, and then we plant them and have to wait three more years for them to get fruit. Well, what you guys have been doing is great--you've been getting plants from local farms, so they're better adapted to the micro-climate. Oh, yes...right. Israel was in a meeting where my husband also went and that was a problem--there are no seeds in Puerto Rico. The government has not provided seeds, they said they didn't have a vision of having these seeds ready for after the hurricane. And now there's a shortage..a big shortage. So we are very much grateful that we were able to get this fifteen hundred and that we're getting these others from a friend of ours. And we're taking care of the ones that we've already planted, so that you know we don't lose them. Have you had any other sort of help from nonprofits or government agencies? No, we're still waiting. He had insurance on our plants and our crops. finally in February we were able to get our money but we have got no help from the local government. And no help from the federal government. We are waiting for the USDA( Department of Agriculture) to come for the cleaning up the debris pickup which they promised us. Not only us-- they offered to the community and to the farmers. So they have approved but they're still inspecting and receiving claims. Then they finish at the end of this month to close the peried to recieve claims, then they will start inspecting. So they don't expect for another two months to be giving anything out. Imagine, almost a year or so. And with coffee plants it takes three or four years to be productive, right? Right. It's really an uphill battle. I mean, we have survived because 1.) we have insurance and 2.) my husband's family in Europe has helped us economically. This is how we've been able to survive those first few months until we started getting people to come and stay on the farm and people to come on the coffee tours. Oh great, thats has probably been a big help for you. Well it started only in January, which is really the high season. Of course, we didn't get as many tourists as in previous years. But yes, slowly we have been getting them. Okay, thank you. I think that's it with the questions that I have Please Domenico, the word that has to get out is that Puerto Rico is ready for business. Restaurants are open, small rooms like ours and like Sandra's. Exactly, people aren't sitting around, people are working and doing great things. We're ready to receive visitors. We need people to come to Puerto Rico. We don't want charity, what we want is people to come, spend money, go to restaurants, come and take a coffee tour or come and stayin our bed & breakfast. And that will help us tremendously. Also, part of what I'm talking about for my thesis is a shift to how people here think about the local economy. Providing a better service and higher quality product, like you, Sandra Farms, and a handful of other producers are doing, is by offering this, allowing you to access a very large market that is willing to pay much more for a much better product. Yes, exactly. I think there are a lot of small farmers and small businessmen are kind of ingrained with a certain. Then there are people like you guys that are leading the way into showing how a transition to a more specialty market can really be sustainable here. My husband has always said that Puerto Rico commercial coffee has no future. We cannot compete with countries like Vietnam that is producing a commercial quality coffee. The future of Puerto Rico is gormet, specialty coffee but of course special coffee requires special care and the costs are very high. But like you say, there is a future. I mean, the people that we get here on our coffee tours are willing not only to pay for the coffee tour but also for our products because they realize the amount of work that goes into it and also the quality. Definitely, that is the future, the only future-- Puerto Rico can have excellent high quality coffee because of the ground, because the climate conditions-- that is the future. But people have to get away from the old ways of doing it and that's a process within education. They have to see that there is a return and of course, there has to be an investment as well. Unfortunately the government isn't willing to go that route because they are making already so much money out importing. Out of importing over 85% of the coffee.. its imported. Exactly. Exactly. And they make over 70 million dollars from that coffee that they imported. So they're not interested in helping the local economy and the local farmers and it's unfortunate. That's the main point I'm trying to get across in my project and in my thesis. The only path for growth and economic stability and sustainability is transitioning to a specialty market. We simply can't compete in any manner, in a commodity based market. Well, we can compete-- but only on high end. I'm saying, in a commodity market. In specialty, yes. In a high end market, we cannot compete at a commercial level. Like I said, we cannot compete with countries like Vietnam where their wages are so low. I mean, we are part of the United States and we have to pay minimum wage. You can't compete with countries like Vietnam or even in Central America where the farmer gets paid three dollars a day. My husband met a German lady that has a farm inGuatemala and she paid her workers three dollars a day. That same worker in Puerto Rico cost us sixty dollars. How has it been finding workers during the harvest season? We're blessed that we don't have that problem because we're a very small farm. The community around are the workers that come to us because we pay very well. We pay not only the federal minimal wage and we pay even more to give them a special bonus if they pick the coffee the way we want it, which is ripe. So of course, they'd rather come to us than go to a farm where they get paid very little money. Yeah, five dollars or less. Right. So we never had a problem with our coffee being picked. Its people that live within this community and they look forward to it because it's an income thatthey can make. How do you guys structure of that in terms of giving them a bonus for picking only the ripe cherries? What do you mean, how do we structure it? How do you check, once they pick? Once they pick, you check right then? Yes, of course we -- and you're welcome to take the coffee tour.-- are one of the few farms that do two selections.The first selection is after the coffee is picked: it goes on to the table and I have a group of women who supervise and look over the coffee. Any bean that is not ripe, the way we want it, comes out-- it is not processed. When we roast, we roast once a week and the ladies come and once the coffee is roasted it goes on the table she follows the guidelines of the Specialty Coffee Association of America. Any bean that was not roasted evenly, that was broken or that shows any of the defects according to the Specialty Coffee Association is out and does not go in our bags. So, we selections of our coffee--that's why it is so costly. So this is how we know-- the bags are numbered from the workers and we know who picks what. Then that person is paid accordingly Thats great. That's how we do it. Thats like what Sandra and Israel are doing, trying to entice more workers. Well, yeah, they're farm is much bigger than ours. So they've been paying higher wages butI have been talking to them recently and they are considering adding more incentive for picking the coffee properly. Exactly, so that they can get a better product. How many acres do they have? About 225 acres. Wow, it's hard to get that many workers because don't forget that coffee is handpicked. So its difficult--and of course they're competing with a lot of other farms around them because there are many more farms in Adjuntas. We're really pretty much --there are not that many farms where we are located. So we're blessed-- the community of the people who live in this area are the ones that help us pick the coffee. I definitely very happy to see you guys doing so well and sticking with your vision of doing things the right way. It hasn't been easy. You know, my husband is very strict on that. This is his vision. I call it the silent temptation: "oh, it alright, let that pass now". But gradually it just degrades your quality down and down--you have to always be strict in terms of that. Definitely, definitely. And if you do, you see the results. People see that and people appreciate it. Right, right. Like I said, you're welcome Right. You get coffee and you don't. You know I'm not I'm not.