Andes EcoTour has been running responsible and sustainable nature tours around Bogotá since 2010. For this tour we head down to Silvania in the Cundinamarca region, about 3 hours South of Bogotá.

 

Colombia is the 3rd largest coffee producing country in the world (after Brazil and Vietnam) and has been producing coffee since the plant was introduced to Latin America in the 1700s.

 

All those mountains create an ideal environment for growing Arabica coffee. Arabica is considered high quality but is difficult to cultivate, making it more expensive. As a result, most of that great coffee is exported. So what’s left in Colombia is generally lower-quality coffee or tragically, even cheaper coffee imported from other countries.

 

Arabica coffee in Colombia is grown on small farms on the steep slopes of the mountains. It has to be hand picked, and there is no way to bring machines on those hills.

 

With climate change, temperatures are rising. And the coffee farms which were at low altitude have had to adapt and change to cacao farms instead, who better support the warmer climate.