Francisco Villeda Panchito

Cooperativa Las Capucas, Copan, Honduras

He’s married with Elda Torres and has 4 children; since 1999 he is among the first members of the Las Capucas Cooperative, Copan, Honduras. The story of Panchito is linked to an episode when he was a Honduran army soldier. During a shootout he lost one arm, an episode that forced him to return home to his family. Panchito, with great fortitude, after the rehabilitation period, found employment with the cooperative as a laborer and in spite of his disability, he was able, like others, to do any manual work. With the first salaries took the ownership of the family plantation and built an in house small coffee processing station for producing specialty coffee.

The passion and knowledge of the coffee come from his grandparents, who first taught his father and then to him how to cultivate the farm and how to produce quality coffee. The m aintenance of quality has been a challenge for Panchito, which he achieved also thanks to the cooperative support and collaboration of all his family. Its plantation covers 3-hectares at an altitude of about 1575 meters above sea level. As in all of the cooperative, the coffee is harvested by hand.

Now, thanks to the cooperative, he can access to the best sales conditions for its coffee and investing part of the earnings to improve all the processes of production and to preserve the excellent quality of its product. His coffee is Finca Las Platanares