Anastacio Benitez Diaz "Lempira"

Anastacio Benitez Diaz "Lempira"

  • November 30, 2018
  • |
  • Wilmer Carcamo
 

 

Anastacio is a producer from the community of Gualdalla, a very humble village located in San Sebastian, Lempira. Anastacio lived there until he was 6 when his parents decided to move to San Sebastian so he could attend school. Three years later the family had to move once again, this time to the community of Plan del Limon, Carrizalito, from where he had to travel several kilometers to get to school in the community of Agua Fria, which he attended until fourth grade as he dropped out of school and decided to work next to his father in the cultivation of basic grains. 

Due to poor coffee prices and struggling to make enough money to live Anastacio decided to immigrate to the United States in 2008. He was simply searching for better opportunities and to improve the living conditions of his family. At that time he had married with Maria Araceli Benitez Lopez and started to grow their family; so he and his brother-in-law traveled illegally hoping to get there safely. After a tough 22-day trip and getting through innumerable terrible situations, they managed to get to Virginia, where his other brother-in-law was waiting for them. He found work on various kitchen restaurants but could never earn enough to reach livable standards or send money home or reach and 
he decided to return to Honduras after 22 months of hard work.

He convinced himself to keep trying by all means to expand his farm and keep cultivating more coffee. He started farming specialty coffee to improve the prices his farm received for the commodity. Today, Anastacio, his parents and brothers are engaged in the production and trading of coffee, which now sums up 14.79 hectares of production. he and his family currently live in el Remolino, a small village in the Agua Fria community in Lempira.

We recently interview Anastacio about Specialty Coffee and the environment, you can watch that HERE.

Anastacio was also our first farmer to get his equipment from our #tipthefarmer campaign, you can watch the video HERE.

You can read about and buy Anastacio's coffee "Lempira" HERE.

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