Bless This Mess: Syntropic Coffee Farming Takes Root In Brazil

Author: Juliana Ganan | Published: May 10, 2018

When I first saw João Pedro David’s farm, it was hard to understand. For me, having grown up the daughter of a monoculture-conventional coffee farmer in Minas Gerais, Brazil, David’s land looked more like a forest than a farm, with some Yellow Catuaí coffee trees dotted here and there.

But with time, David made his case, and explained the symbiotic relationship between coffee and the various species of fruits and vegetables native to our Mantiqueira region he had chosen to carefully plant here.

David’s vision for his Sítio Travessia farm is systemic and soil-focused—the ground here is always covered with mulch and organic material. And so it makes sense that it carries the look of a forest, which, after all, is really just an organic system of constant, dynamic soil-enrichment, with each species in an ecosystem contributing to the health of the whole.

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