All about the why!
Learn more about us & our motivation
Why a Coffee School Project? Why in El Salvador & why start such a project? We reveal the background, our motivation & our long-term vision!
Rodolfo Ruffatti, 5th generation coffee farmer, & Leonhard Wild, coffee roaster from Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany – this naturally begs the question of how this partnership came about!
‘Hardi’ follows the values of sustainability, direct trade & high quality in his roastery. With these characteristics in mind, he set out to find coffee farmers around the world to source their green coffee directly & engage in fair trade directly with the coffee farm.
Rodolfo & ‘Hardi’ got to know each other 8 years ago. Organic farming on the Ruffatti coffee farm in El Salvador was a perfect match for Wildkaffee’s philosophy & so a long-term partnership & above all friendship was born!
The emergence
The problems of the region
El Salvador & especially the Buenos Aires region at the Santa Ana volcano offers perfect climatic conditions for the cultivation of high quality coffees & specialty coffees – but unfortunately there are numerous abandoned coffee farms & potentials are not exploited!
Due to leaf rust in 2013 & 2014, many coffee plants died. Furthermore, there are numerous shady middlemen who depress the prices. In addition, a high crime rate ensures that there is little tourism, which is why there is little foreign income in the interior of the country. This led many smallholders to leave their coffee farms or to grow other crops or switch to livestock. A few coffee farmers remained, but these mostly work with outdated techniques in coffee cultivation & processing of coffee cherries. Therefore, only small quantities remain annually for the trade, from which the coffee farmers can just about finance their survival.
With our Coffee School Project we want to rebuild the coffee region Buenos Aires in El Salvador together with coffee farmers & coffee roasters, unite farmers & thus promote the development of a coffee community for the local smallholders.
To achieve this, our Coffee School Project consists of 2 parts:
1. we support the coffee farmers & smallholders of the region to sell their high quality green coffees & specialty coffees around the world. They also receive training & seminars on how to grow coffee more efficiently & how to optimize the processing of green coffee.
2. we conduct trainings & seminars for coffee roasters on our coffee farm in El Salvador – introducing Organic Farming, showing the cultivation & preparation of coffee and also the working methods of a coffee farmer in El Salvador.
The idea & motivation
The implementation
By building our own coffee farm, we create a place for common exchange & transparency between coffee farmers & coffee roasters. Proceeds from both parts of the Coffee School Project will go towards building community & coffee farmers in the Buenos Aires region of El Salvador.
We bought one of these abandoned coffee farms & are now in the process of building it. This farm will serve for trainings & seminars for both local coffee farmers and coffee roasters from all over the world. In this way, we create a place where coffee roasters can get to know their coffee farmers – directly, fairly & transparently!
Transparent Fair Sustainable Direct
Our Coffee School Project – A transparent, direct & fair connection between coffee farmer & coffee roastery.
Any questions?
Then feel free to contact us – we will gladly inform you in detail about our project, our green coffee & our seminars in El Salvador!