Martha Ligia Reina

PARTNER’S NAME : JULIO ISIDRO LOPEZ

FINCA AGUA REGADA STORY

Martha Ligia Reina and her husband Julio Lopez, first arrived in Pitalito, Huila in 2010 looking for a piece of land and for new opportunities as they were forced to move from their hometown due to the violence. They arrived, purchased Finca Agua Regada in the community of Bruselas, but they knew nothing about coffee nor other products. When they purchased the farm, they met a worker that used to live there. He was the one that taught Martha and Julio to produce coffee. At first, they didn’t dry the coffee on their farm, they sold the wet parchment to cooperatives where they were being paid the market price and the coffee was blended up with the rest of Huilan coffees, without getting any incentive to produce high-quality coffee.

As the years passed, Martha and Julio asked people and inquired how they could sell their coffee at a better price. That was when they took two samples of coffee to Caravela’s warehouse in Pitalito, which had great results in our cupping lab. Since then, they have had the chance to improve their incomes, and this way, improve their infrastructure, build a better drying station, and improve their coffee trees. This process has had great results in Martha’s life. She is now very well-known for producing great coffee, she has learned and understood many things about the cultivation of coffee that she has used to become better harvest after harvest. For Martha, her secret to producing great coffee is to work with love and passion.