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Fazenda Uniao (Uniao Farm) is located on the city of Piata – Bahia State, on the region of Chapada Diamantina, where the weather is characteristic and unique, ideal for producing specialty coffee with superior quality. The average altitude on the planting areas is approximately 1.260 meters, existing plantations with 30, 10 and two years, and a recently renewed planting, totalizing 4.5 hectares of cultivated area with about 15.000 plants. The owner is Mr. Joao Florentino Barbosa, retired public server and farmer, who dedicates most part of his free time to coffee growing. He counts on the technical assistance of his son Glayco Rege Ferreira Barbosa, Agronomist Engineer hired by ASCAMP – Associacao dos Cafeicultores do Municipio de Piata (Coffee Growers Association of the City of Piata), who guides him as for the correct handling of the harvest, always searching to prioritize the environment protection with the correct and conscious use of the agricultural defensives and application techniques, as well to the other producers associated to ASCAMP, defending the social interests of the city’s coffee making chain.

Coffee processing system

The harvest is manual and selective, picking only mature grains (cherries). The freshly harvested coffee goes through the huller machine (which is rented from a close propriety), separating the defective beans. The drying is made on greenhouse-yards, where the coffee is turned over every hour to dry evenly and avoid brewing the grains. This process takes from 5 to 10 days until the coffee reaches the 12% moisture, after that being stored in lots in a ventilated place.

Quality concern

With the growth of productivity obtained through the correct use of agronomic techniques during the crop 2011/2012, there have been investments to open an artesian well to install an irrigation system through dripping on the harvest (already working), there will be built a greenhouse-yard and a deposit, and acquired a pulping machine on the propriety, allowing the centralization of the whole infrastructure on the own farm, ensuring the quality of the coffees there made.