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Overview

Jose Armando Portillo has been growing coffee for 25 years now. He bought Cerro Negro four years ago together with his mother and one brother while the coffee prices were low. This was an established farm with 15 years old average trees. Cerro Negro was neglected by its previous owner but that didn’t stop the Portillo Peraza family. They started doing weed control, shade pruning and also working coffee vegetative tissue with appreciate pruning. Jose fertilizes with chicken manure and urea, applying chemicals fertilizers (formula) after soil analysis, if required. At Cerro Negro, Jose employ two permanent workers and 30 people during harvest. He pays 30% more of the legal wage to his pickers, and he’s convinced that his good relationship with them allowed him to be successful this year. “They collaborated a lot” he added. He is very grateful with his father, as he taught him to love and respect hard work by giving him many responsibilities but also by always recognize his work with proper payment and encouragement. “My father always paid me, even if I was his son… this was something that many others did not understand back then” but at the end, Jose was marked for life. His favorite phrase is “If you wish to succeed, you will have to sweat your t-shirt”. Jose’s enthusiasm can be read in his eyes, he is already making plans for next year, including: to invest in his own depulper (wet mill), maintain farm roads, to keep growing Pacamara while generating more jobs in the area, but the most important is to provide a better future to his wife and his three kids. He hopes to get rewarded for his effort and he thinks that the transparency given by this event is important to get recognition for his beloved Chalatenango as a top coffee quality producer. “We have been growing coffee for many years now, it is great that finally we are getting the recognition we deserve”. Cerro Negro farm is a second timer at COE events. Jose got convinced to participatethe first time by his neighbor Antonio Aguilar where he processed his Pacamara. He decided to participate and harvest during two days the participant lot, he thought by that time, his farm had conditions to win and still believed so this year.