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| Winning farm of the Brazil Cup of Excellence Competition and Auction - 2001 edition |
| Paulo Sérgio de Almeida e Irmãos Fazenda Santa Terezinha and Fazenda Santa Maria |
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Characteristics of the coffee lot:
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 click on the image to enlarge it |
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Characteristics of the farms:
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 Paulo Sérgio de Almeida |
The Santa Terezinha and Santa Maria farms are located in the southern part of the State of Minas Gerais in a mountainous region, with excellent soil fertility and high contents of organic matter.
The property belongs to the family for many years, and is managed by the Agronomist Paulo Sérgio de Almeida, graduated from the Federal University of Lavras in 1975. The family specialized in Coffee Plantations in 1983. Since then, organic handling techniques are applied, in addition to the good quantity of organic matter from dairy cattle and pigs, the farms use the spontaneous vegetation that is formed between the coffee lines, to add biomass to the soil, by clearing, and avoiding the use of herbicides. |
| "From March 1998 onwards, I have been using - every 60 days - a natural product that contains 22 amino acids in sprayings with coastal atomizers, of the vaccine type (spraying just one side of the plant)", commented Paulo Sérgio de Almeida.
"The product is extracted from fish, wheat germs and soybean flour, and causes a fantastic emission of new roots in the coffee plantation, perfectly feeding the plants, on their leaves and fruit", he added. |
 Coffee plantation area |
| All solid waste from pigs (80 heads) and dairy cattle (270 heads) are used in composting, and does not pollute the environment. On December 21, 1999, Paulo Sérgio de Almeida became a member of the Organic Agriculture Association and on November 25, 2000 of the Rural Development Biodynamic Institute (IBD). "Now, we have the organic seal of IBD, the number of the project is MG050", said the producer. |
 Separation of solid and liquid pigs' waste |
 Composting with manure plus coal, sawdust, grass and coffee husk |
 Liquid waste pumped to pasture and plantation areas |
 Coffee plantation area |
According to Paulo Sérgio de Almeida he obtains a fine coffee because of factors such as location (southern Minas Gerais), altitude, climate, fertile lands, organic matter, biomass handling and amino acid spraying.
During the last four years, the producer has reached a processed coffee bag from 370 liters of harvested coffee. The coffee plantations are located in high fertility purple latosol at an average altitude of 1,150 meters. The annual average temperature is 22oC and annual rainfalls reach 1,200 mm. |
| In addition to the use of organic handling, the family performs a work of protecting the water sources and the legal forest reserves, where there are many monkeys and a large variety of birds. |
 Legal forest reserve |
 secular tree |
 At the background, employee's home |
Paulo Sérgio de Almeida works in the arms with two brothers, Celso de Almeida and Helder de Almeida, who are responsible together with Paulo Sergio for managing the farms.
The 20 full-time employees receive salaries 17% above the minimum wage. Moreover, those employees have other benefits such as free housing with all infrastructure including free electricity, milk and ground coffee. |
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Coffee processing system: The coffee is harvested manually on pieces of special cloth. Beans go through a washer of the "Maravilha" type, they are pulped (both cherry and dry beans - "bóia") and dried separately in a suspended terrace - which has a special nursery white plastic cover looking like a tunnel. Subsequently, the coffee is stored on a warehouse with specially covered floor - cherry coffee in bulk and the dried beans in raffia bags - until they are processed. |
 "Maravilha" drier |
 Coffee pulper |
 Suspended terrace with nursery plastic film coverage |
 Terrace and warehouse |
 Coffee from the lot that won the first prize |
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Quality concerns: Always concerned about working with quality, Paulo Sérgio Almeida is always up-to-date regarding innovations. He uses the pulped natural method since Pinhalense started manufacturing its equipment. This year he used the suspended covered terrace for the first time and did not use dryers to dry any coffee. "I always work aiming at producing good quality products. Drying the coffee protected by a white plastic cover was our idea to simplify covering the terrace. Thus, the sun was never directly on coffee grains, which must have contributed to maintaining quality. I was able to pick a fine coffee from the trees and to continue with a fine fruit during the drying process, commented Paulo Sérgio de Almeida. |
Organic coffee
Catuaí - 9 hectares