The sentence on the banner means: Support for the development of the coffee culture in El Salvador. Photo: © WEBER Packaging GmbH, 2019
My travel report
Part 7 – A fund for farmers
Today we were allowed to accompany coffee farmer Andrés Quintanilla at a bank event. The bank has set up a fund to support coffee farmers, in order to provide information events for further training. At these events the farmers can exchange their experiences and help each other. The bank's support measures consist of financial resources, technical assistance and guidance on sustainable coffee cultivation. Just one example of the technical assistance is drones, which the bank acquired from a Berlin-based company in 2015.
Networking the farmer
Today's event focused on the fertilization of coffee farms. First, employees of the ecoBusiness Fund, the bank's fund, gave a presentation on their work: there, customers can make information from their farm available to other farmers. The ecoBusiness Fund also has the task of collecting data. With the help of drones, the size of the farm, the exact location and even the amount of plants can be determined. It also makes it possible to identify certain soil characteristics. The soil plays an important role for the farmers, as it varies from area to area and thus offers different bases for cultivation.
Minimum factor trace elements
This is where fertilization comes into play: If the coffee farm is located in an area that offers little sodium, for example, this trace element must be added. Otherwise, the plant - similar to humans - could show signs of deficiency or, in the worst case, it would not grow. An important rule in fertilization is Liebig's Law of the Minimum, which states that the growth of a plant is limited by the relatively scarcest resource. Farmers have the possibility to "order" a soil diagnosis from a company and then use the results to plan their fertilization, planting and cultivation. The advantage of such an analysis is that the farmer then knows exactly what he needs to supply the plants for optimal growth and thus does not spend money on unnecessary means.
Read part 8 here in the WEBER News blog!