Yuri del Carmen Prado

Although it is more common to think of a coffee grower as a male figure, arguably overlooking the impact of women on coffee production, when you start looking more in detail, this view is completely off. When women get fully involved in the production of specialty coffee, the benefits can be seen with healthier families, better farm management regarding incomes and savings.

Yuri Prado’s farm is located in the highlands of Puyango in the department of Loja in Ecuador. She works in the farm with her husband and family, working together as a team to achieve an outstanding quality coffee. She used to produce commercial coffee with not doing any additional process, until one day she got in contact with the PECA team, who encouraged her to take out a sample so that her coffee could be evaluated as specialty coffee. That was when she realized that her coffee was special and it had lots of potential for specialty coffee and receiving better incomes. Since then, Yuri and her family have been working towards this objective, produce better coffee.