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Farm History:

Fazenda do Serrado is located in South Minas, in the Municipality of Carmo de Minas. It has a mountainous topography, with an altitude between 1040 and 1280 meters, and average annual rainfalls between 1350 and 1500mm. The rainy and dry seasons are well defined, and its average temperature is 180 C.

The farm belongs to Mr. Antônio Andrade Pereira Filho and Mrs. Maria Conceição Costa Pereira's family. They started planting coffee in the 1970's. In the 1990's the farm was transferred to their daughters management, Maria Valéria and Maria Rogéria Costa Pereira.

The plantation is managed manually, because of the topography of the farm. Currently the farm has 50 employees who are registered according to Brazilian employment and labor laws, 12 houses for the employees with all the required infrastructure, coffee and milk supplies and health care through the Family Health Program. Children study in public schools of the city of Carmo de Minas. There is an official soccer field for the employees where tournaments are held annually, and lakes for fish farming.

Coffee processing system:

The farm's topography is quite rough, and does not allow mechanized harvesting. All processes are performed manually. The coffee is picked on cloth and transferred to the processing area.

At the processing area, the coffee is washed and immediately pulped. Subsequently, it is spread out on the terrace, where it is turned over numerous times until it reaches 11% humidity, when it is kept in wooden bins to rest. After 30 days, the beans receive final processing and are stored in a dry and safe place.

Concern with quality:

In addition to the well being of its employees, the farm's greatest concern is with the quality of its coffees. It is assisted by an agronomist and an occupational safety engineer.

Specific training courses are provided to tractor drivers and coffee drying technicians; there are talks and courses on occupational health and safety to all the employees of the farm.

The farm invested in infrastructure to produce high quality coffees: washer, pulper, driers, and built a 3500 m2 terrace, a total processing area of 10.000 m2.

The whole process is controlled for each planting field, from the up keeping of the fields and harvesting, up to sending the beans to the local Cooperative. The farm's office maintains all records for each planting field (employed labor, expenses with raw materials and pesticides, etc).

The coffee beans are picked manually on cloth by the derriça method [enfolding a coffee tree branch with both hands and sliding them where the beans are, letting the beans fall on a piece of cloth]. The harvest begins in mid-May and ends in October.