La Estrechura is located 8 miles from the town of San Juan del Río Coco and is part of the Cerro Blanco community which was founded in 1940. It is a community which diversifies their production with beans, corn and coffee in association with plantains, avocado, and oranges; they also raise poultry, pigs and some cattle.

The population is composed of 200 families, a good number of whom have been left disillusioned for having been members of cooperatives and prefer to organize as a community around beans and coffee and are beginning to roast coffee. Producing and selling beans and coffee as a community is making them change the dependency which they have had on brokers, not so much in terms of doing away with them but to arrive are more fair terms. It is a community which during the “big war” of the 1980s persisted as a community composed mostly by the extended family of the Aguilares, with strong religious affiliation. They have a strong collective spirit for building their churches and repairing roads; if it rains a lot or a tree falls over the road linking them to the town, they and the bus driver go out to repair the road. Their favorite expression is “nos llevó puerca” [I am riding a pig], which they use when they are in a bad moment and they have to get up and continue forward. Their coffee is a testament to that fine relationship between collective actions and building bridges with brokers.

Province: Madriz

Municipality: San Juan de Río Coco

Number of families / farms: 80

Altitude: entre 2,198 y 3,600 feet above sea level

Coffee varieties: catimor and parainema

Process: pulped and washed; pulp is then used as organic fertilizer.

Fermentation: 18 hours in tanks

Drying: 10 days

Shade trees: purple coral, loquat, maya nut, guava, mahogany, cedar, ceiba, orange, tangerine and lemon trees

Forest area: 68 acres

Labor: Relatives in the community.