Julia Ortega Carballo: On Carbon Neutrality
While we could go on and on about the importance of organic agriculture, we wanted to take a moment to highlight how incredible Julia’s Carbon Neutral Certification is. When asked why Carbon Neutral Certification was important, Julia emphasized its role in improving the health and working conditions for workers within her industry. Julia calls this, "leading by the heart."
It was also imperative to Julia and her team that their farm was doing everything within its power to mitigate climate change. Climate change is one of the biggest problems facing modern coffee farmers. Ultimately, Julia is looking to create a new status quo within the industry (sound familiar?) By rethinking the way she looks at her operations Julia looks to inspire other small and medium-sized producers in Mexico to reevaluate their own business model, specifically as it pertains to earth stewardship.
Being a carbon-neutral farm takes some serious dedication and hard work. After a formal audit of their carbon emissions completed by a third-party entity trained in the ISO 14067 protocol, Julia and her team identified practices on their farm that they could change. Instead of using processing machines powered by gas or electricity, Julia’s is powered by a stationary bicycle! Julia and her team also created a defacto nothing-goes-to-waste-protocol. Instead of discarding all of the waste from processing the coffee fruit, Julia and her team created a flower that can be used to make an assortment of foods.
When this waste is not treated or disposed of properly, it can result in the contamination of aquifers and generate Greenhouse Gases. They also use the remaining fruit pulp to create organic fertilizers and bio-products. Not to mention they even make a Jam from the coffee fruit!
The benefits of Julia's farming practices are quantifiable and plentiful. Not only is her coffee certifiably DELICIOUS, Socially she is spearheading a movement focused on the health and wellbeing of farm workers and their farms.
Environmentally, they are producing coffee in such a way that respects local flora and fauna while simultaneously shining a light on the importance of respecting the environment and making responsible purchases. Economically, their circular economic model has created a product where the end consumer is ultimately prepared to pay a fair price. With your purchase of our Organic Mexico Julia Ortega Carballo, you are pushing coffee forward.