Today, I had the great opportunity to visit a coffee farm and strawberry farm. Beginning with the Dona Coffee tour, I noticed that their process has a firm emphasis on sustainability. Firstly, instead of using unnatural fertilizer, they utilize biodiversity. The farm is scattered with other plant species such as bananas and flowers that keep the soil rich and nutrient dense. In addition, the farm avoids pesticides by utilizing pinzon cafetalero bird species to reduce mosquitos and beetles. Furthermore, the farm creates a closed loop process by both reusing the parchment as biofuel for the dryer machine and water from the washer for irrigation. 

With respect to climate change, the coffee plant could be at risk with increased humidity; with humidity comes the presence of harmful fungi. To combat this, the farm is working towards creating different hybrid species of the arabic coffee plant, which turns out to be the only species of coffee legal to grow in Costa Rica.

As for their technology use, while Doka farms has access to washing machines, dryers, and other machinery for processing, many smaller, family owned, farms still do everything by hand. 

The strawberry farm also implemented sustainable measures. Their irrigation is built around the rainfall and biodiversity facilitates rich soil. However, the strawberry farm had a greater reliance on pesticides and fertilizer. I predict that since the strawberry farm is less likely to profit off of a gift shop and tours, they must use cheaper agricultural methods. 

An overall highlight of today was being able to try the coffee and chocolate from Doka Farm. I bought a couple bags at the gift shop so hopefully my family enjoys the coffee as much as I did!