El Cedro Origin
Angel and Irma Yatz Xol live in the village of El Cedro, nestled in the mountains above Livingston on Guatemala's Caribbean Coast. Of the Q'echi indigenous group, their grandparents arrived in the 60's and 70's to escape conflict in the highlands, where they have lived as subsistence farmers primarily from slash-and-burn corn.
Today, Angel goes to work at his land 1-hour walk away from his home. He carries, with his family, the pods back to his house to ferment and dry the seeds. Once the cacao is ready, he wakes up at 1 am to walk another 30 minutes with the cacao seeds to the closest access of Rio Dulce. He canoes to Livingston town in order to arrive for the 5 am boat where his cacao can start the journey towards Cacao Source store.
SHOP
Meet your farmer!
Upon learning of the international value of cacao back in 2017, Irma took the initiative to fill nursery bags and buy seed for their first 800 cacao plants with the help of their five children, led by their eldest son Jayron. With the change in land use from slash-and-burn to cacao agroforestry, the Yatz Xol family notes an increase in their income, as well as a reforested landscape, as the cacao is intercropped with native timber species such as caoba (mahogany), laurel and El Cedro, for which his village is named.
cacao trees
Land size
Altitude
workers
Genetics
Local and regional criollo hybrids.
Environment
Young fruit forest, next to a village, proximity with the Caribbean. surrounded with wilderness.
Fermentation
Fermented 7 days in wooden box with banana leaves.
Ownership
1 Family, and many around that are influenced and are planting cacao. 3 Workers from the owner’s family. Q'echi community.
Give Back to your farmer
Give Back to farmer is an opportunity to value and recognize the hard work of farming communities. This donation will go into a community project co-created with El Cedro Origin farmers to support a social or environmental cause in the community. At the end of each year, we will be meeting the farmers with the total donation to decide the project to be funded.
