About Nina Y Natividad

Efrain Nina and Natividad Suarez team up to bring us Nina and Natividad, representing their unique community, Urpipata (Quechua for “Pigeon Path”). Located in the Santa Teresa district of La Convencion province in the Southern Peru region of Cusco, Urpipata is made up of around 300 families, all of whom grow coffee as their primary living. Because Santa Teresa is very close to Machu Picchu, this area also hosts large amounts of tourists who provide supplemental income in the off-season. Urpipata, like the rest of Santa Teresa, is remote with lush, semitropical vegetation and periods of heavy rain, especially in the months of January through May, often leading to landslides that close the main roads.

Born in 1962, Efrain Nina has worked on his farm for as long as he can remember. When his father passed away, Efrain inherited his 4 hectares of land and named it Inciensuyoc (Spanish, referring to the many incense trees on the land when he first inherited it). He grows Typica, intercropping with native leguminous Pacay trees for shade, nitrogen fixing, and ideal soil moisture levels. Efrain ferments his coffee for 18 hours in bags and plastic barrels, then dries it slowly and evenly for 13 days (depending on the climate) in a 24 square meter solar dryer. In addition to coffee, he also grows avocado and cassava and raises poultry for his family’s consumption.

The other half of this lot, Natividad Suarez was born on December 25, 1952 and named for her Christmas birth. Born in Apurimac, an area that used to be very poor, Natividad’s parents left when she was just 3 months old looking for a more fertile and peaceful place to raise their daughter. In Urpipata where they settled, they found work on the large haciendas (estates) belonging to a small group of landowners called hacendados, who reigned supreme in Santa Teresa at the time. Their entire dynamic as laborers changed in the 1970s when former President Velasco Alvarado implemented the Agrarian Reform, stripping the landowners of their lands and giving them to the workers.

Natividad now has a 5.6-hectare farm where she grows Typica and Catimor varieties, also using the aforementioned Pacay trees to enhance quality and productivity. She ferments her coffee for 14 hours in concrete tanks and then dries it slowly and evenly for 13 days (depending on the climate) in a 24 square meter solar dryer. She was widowed several years ago and currently lives with her youngest son, who helps her in the many agronomic tasks farms rely on and encourages her to keep doing her best.