About Finca Saq’kimal

Angustia grew up around coffee, drinking, harvesting and caring for the crop around her. Starting at a young age, she helped her brother with the farm but decided to get more involved in order to better the economic opportunity for her family and to improve the quality of their coffee. Now, coffee is more than a job for Angustia; it’s a way of life.

Her journey as a coffee producer began with her father, Don Francisco Pacay Ac, who started with two manzanas. Don Francisco decided to enter the coffee industry as a way to support his family and give more opportunities to his children. This farm is named Finca Saq’kimal and is now managed by his children.

Finca Saq’kimal is located in Caserio Samac Cobán, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala at an elevation of 1,350 meters above sea level. The farm produces a number of coffee varietals including Caturra, Catimor and Borbon. The farm, Finca Saq’kimal, is part of Cooperativa Samac. 150 families make up this cooperative, all of which work together to improve their coffees and to also maintain their cultural and lingusitic Q’eqchi identity. Angustia feels that the cooperative and her farm are places where young people in her community have the opportunity to work and practice their language, ultimately preserving their culture.

Angustia takes pride in caring for each step in the process of cultivating coffee in order to produce a high quality product. Nevertheless, Angustia is not only a producer but is also a roaster, the only one in her family with the know-how and skills. Nine years ago, she took the initiative to attend a roasting course in order to receive a certification making her the roasting representative for her farm and her community - proof that women have the capacity to be harvest and process leaders in coffee.

A grave threat for Angustia’s livelihood is climate change, which has affected her crop’s performance and possibility for an economically sustainable future. The fall in the price of coffee and the challenges after the la Roya crisis has made coffee production hard, especially for small farms like Finca Saq’kimal that have less access to the resources and technology needed to fight these obstacles. For Angustia, it’s been two years since la Roya devastated her farm, but her family has invested in disease-resistant techniques and treatments little by little and has successfully avoided further issues.

Nonetheless, Angustia has grand plans for the future. She wants to improve her coffee’s quality, grow the size of the farm by purchasing more land, and start a project to protect the land and forests. She also has the goal of starting a roastery on Finca Saq’kimal as a way to diversify income for the farm. For reforestation and forest protection initiatives, Angustia aims to bring more sustainable farming practices to coffee in her region in hopes of ensuring future prosperity. For her own future in coffee, she dreams of planting more coffee, caring for her land, and supporting the longevity of her community’s identity as Q’eqchi coffee producers.