I have travelled with OBIIS to our Farm Partners. Here’s why you should, too.

By Brittney Kloosterhouse

I have visited two different farms now. El Recreo in Nicaragua (twice!) and Finca T in Honduras. These trips are truly life-changing and if you’re on the fence about going, here’s why you should.

You’ll get to meet these amazing farmers. People who pour their entire lives into growing our coffee. BIGGBY coffee. They invest their lives, their labor, and it is passed down through generations. You’ll hear their amazing stories, their hardships, their successes, and you’ll get to celebrate every step of the way with these farmers as you walk through their villages, fields, and get the inside scoop, in-depth detail and truly feel their stories. 

You’ll get to meet the amazing leadership teams. They run the show. They make sure that everything is done accurately, successfully, and they make sure that our coffee is the best that it can be. That workers are doing things the way that they should be. That they’re treating the people the way that they should be. And each of them have their own stories on how they came to be where they are. And you get to listen to them and talk to them and eat with them.

You get to eat really good food. And I mean really good food. You’re never hungry, and there are people working all day every day to prepare the best of meals for you. There’s something for everybody, and there’s never any pressure to eat something that you don’t think you will like. But I guarantee you that it is always delicious.

You may not know anybody on your trip, you may think that you’re going to feel alone, but that’s OK. Because on 2 of my trips, I knew one person out of the group of seven or eight of us. And by the end of each trip we became close friends. You room with them, you travel with them, and by night one we are all laughing and talking around a dinner table together before we even left the country. You all look out for each other, you build a bond with them that you won’t get with anybody else, and you get to live this amazing experience together.

We have fun. So much fun. You learn a lot, you experience a lot, and if you’re like me, you’re taking a lot of notes on your phone.  But ultimately, we laugh, we cry, and we learn. Whether that is riding on a pick up truck through the mountains of Honduras, or hiking the fields and looking at the beautiful view from the top in Nicaragua. All of that brings a wave of emotion, gratitude, and gives you something that no other experience can. 

You get to see what life is like in these countries. Both farms I went to have schools, but the schools are new. They weren’t always here. And because we’re doing the right thing by buying farm direct, they were able to build or continue to run the schools and educate children, which is an amazing thing for their future. And the entire time you’re at these farms, you are completely safe. They are secured. You are guided. You’re never alone. I never once worried about my safety throughout the entirety of each trip. 

These farms are truly building a future for younger generation, making a difference in their communities, making a difference for the planet and ways that you couldn’t even imagine. And there’s no better way to experience or explain this except for visiting these beautiful farms.