Colombia El Oasis

Doña Luzmila Gonzáles is a dedicated first-generation coffee farmer and has been producing coffee since 2008 with the support of her husband Eider and their 4 children. Luzmila owns two farms in Gaitania, Tolima. The first is El Oasis which is 10 hectares in size. She produces mainly traditional Colombian varieties on her coffee farms such as Castillo, Caturra, Colombia, and Typica. In addition to coffee, she also grows beans and fruit trees such as mandarin. Luzmila was raised in the rush of the big city but ever since she was a young girl, she dreamed of living on a farm, growing her own food and caring for the land. El Oasis was the first farm she was able to afford with the help of a loan from the bank. Since she was new to growing coffee, she relied heavily on the support of her neighbours to help guide her on how to nurture coffee trees and produce great coffee. Luzmila says that one of the greatest challenges comes at harvest time when finding labor to help pick the ripe cherries can be very difficult. Luckie, they live in a tight-knit community of coffee growers that help each other to harvest cherries and transport them to the associations.