Don Nicolás was late to the meeting to which we invited him to talk about associativity and sustainable production issues. I just walked out the door when he arrived. He looked at me with a broad smile and shook my hand. I said: Give me that fist Don Nicolás! he laughed and suddenly I realized he wasn’t wearing a mask. I told him: Come here, put on your mask, there are several of us here. He looked at me like a scolded child and put it on. I immediately thought that the risk is for him, because later he told me that he had not left his farm for a long time. All the more reason I thought. At the end of the meeting, he only told me: I only understood that the climate has changed and that is why the world is warming, or something like that…? He made me smile – which he never saw because of my KN95 mask – and I replied: … something like that, Don Nicolás, something like that. He said goodbye until the next day, since we had planned a visit to his farm, which functions as a collection point for other coffee producers to leave their product there and not have to travel long distances.

The next day, after two hours of travel, we arrived at Río Jivino, El Triunfo community, Francisco de Orellana canton. Don Nicolás was waiting for us with his wife with a wide smile and obviously without a mask. He then gave us a walk through a small part of his farm, a nursery, a dryer for guayusa, coffee, tea and the overhangs where he will receive the coffee harvest. He tells us that the dryer was invented by him… -I can’t wait for them to give us everything, if it has to be done, it has to be done! And his wife corroborates: – We get up at 4 in the morning and we still need more time in the day!

We went on a long trail to see an Amazonian farm. On the right side, the guayusa plants and on the left side, the cocoa plants. As we returned from the path, I joke with him and say: everything is fine Don Nicolás, I congratulate you! Well, just for the cocoa you don’t get 20, I’m going to give you 15; everyone laughs. He tells me is that he does not give me the time, but I already have to dedicate myself to pruning.

His farm will be part of the 10 satellite collection centers that are being promoted with the joint work of ATPA and PROAmazonía.

Hey Don Nicolás, and what are these trees?

-Tecas, they are ready for sale, each costs USD 200.

– And you don’t have a forest? I asked him.

– Of course! We must preserve! He says to me, somewhat alarmed. I saw that his concern for the forest was one of his incentives.

Finally, we said goodbye to Don Nicolás who told us he had a lot to do, he is fine-tuning the overhangs to receive the coffee from the other neighbors who will leave this product to be able to transport it to the collection center in Loreto. His enthusiasm for life, his proactive attitude and his ability to solve problems caught my attention. Farmers are that seed of optimism, knowledge and wisdom.

Author: Lucía Valverde N, Specialist in Associativity and Cooperativism