BOGOTÁ, Colombia – “Barista & Farmer is a cultural bridge between Colombia and Italy, between the reality of our coffee producers and the international scene. We are happy to have this chance to learn from the best and, hopefully, to bring the products of our land under the spotlight”.
These are the words of Albert Ferney Giraldo Varòn, director of international relationships of SENA – Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje (National Learning Service), the biggest and most important public institution dedicated to coffee education, pronounced during the press conference held on December 14th at the Camera di Commercio Italiana (Italian Board of Commerce) to announce the collaboration between the talent show and the colombian institutions.
Barista & Farmer is the only international talent show that glorifies the quality coffee production chain, allowing ten among the best baristas in the world, selected by a jury of professionals in the field, to live for ten days as coffee producers in a country of origin.
The talent, created by Francesco Sanapo, multiawarded barista champion, in collaboration with Italian Exhibition Group, World Coffee Events and SIGEP – Salone Internazionale Gelateria, Pasticceria, Panificazione Artigianale e Caffé, and with the patronage of Speciality Coffee Association (SCA), and Lavazza among the main sponsors, will take place in May 2018 in Colombia, third coffee-producing country in the world. 
Giraldo Varòn continued: “Colombia produces some of the best coffees and, thanks to Barista&Farmer, the world will be able to know those who work daily to create this producs, a tried and true symbol of our land. As SENA, we train the best baristas in the national territory: Barista & Farmer will allow the students to learn from the best and, at the same time, will start a wonderful interchange of knowledge. The talent show will be a pivotal event for the development of the “International Coffee School” and I’m sure that it will be an ideal vehicle to generate interchanges and a mobility of international experts toward Colombia and from Colombia”.
Natalia Valencia, director of sales and public relations of the Federacion Nacional de Cafeteros, added: “We are very happy that Barista&Farmer will take place in Colombia. We want the world to understand that coffee, for us, is not just a plant, there are thousands of families that depend from the production of coffee, around 550 thousands only in Colombia. I believe that the Federacion Nacional de Cafeteros is the only federation of coffee producers of this kind, we’ve been in activity for more than 90 years, our goal is to help the farmers. We teach them new technologies and we monitor their results through the Servicio de Extension, we also have a lab where we develop the best varieties and technologies. We therefore try to take care of the whole production chain, all the way to the final, direct sale of the product, through some shops which are owned by the farmers themselves”.
As for the Camera di Commercio Italiana (Italian Board of Commerce), it praised the union between Italy and Colombia over Barista & Farmer, confirming “the interest and the support on an italian project that promotes the colombian industry”.
Said Francesco Sanapo, talent’s creator: “I’m really happy for the big welcome that Barista & Farmer received in Colombia. Presenting the project to the SENA direction and to the Colombian Coffee Federation, one of the biggest of its kind in terms of cooperation, promotion and production, is a dream come true for me. In February I will be back here and together with the local institutions we will decide which fincas will be the protagonists of the 2018 edition of the talent”.
Patrizia Cecchi, Italian Show Director of Italian Exhibition Group who, every year, in January, during Rimini fair, manages Sigep, the leading event in the field, explains: “Coffee is a business that is becoming more and more the focus of Sigep project, as demonstrated by its inclusion in the payoff of the event. The fair has now become the reference point that gives credit to the field, both in Italy and abroad, and the consolidated partnership with Barista&Farmer and all of its creativity, passion and professionalism, is further proof of this”.
Mario Cerutti, Chief Institutional Relations and Sistainability Officer di Lavazza concluded: “Passion, product and community are the key words of our projects in the origin countries. Sustainability, for us, means to help people live a better life, together with their families, by following a correct lifestyle. It’s important to help them achieve an optimum quality of the produced coffee, but also to let them develop new skills with efficiency, utlizing in the right way the resources of the land, without damaging the environment or the people. Barista & Farmer 2018 will take place in Meta, one of 32 departments in Colombia. Here, the Lavazza Foundation is committed to projects aimed at the community of farmers and their families, for a total of 350 working with coffee”.
Colombia, the country of origin of the fourth event – Colombia is the world’s third exporter of coffee, and has always played a key role in world coffee production, both because of the excellence of its raw materials and because of the small communities of dedicated and passionate coffee producers who often use high-quality, traditional methods. According to recent figures from the Comitato Italiano Caffè (ItalianCoffee Committee), between December 2015 and November 2016 Colombia 12.5 million sacks of green coffee, and between January and September 2016 Italy imported 17.5 million kg (the equivalent of 292,273 sacks) of Columbian green coffee.
In Colombia the Giuseppe and Pericle Lavazza Foundation sustain, in the municipalities of Mesetas, Lejanias and San Juan de Arama, important sustainability projects to provide to the coffee growers all the tools necessary to manage the effects of the climate change and to reintegrate the families of the producers within the territories that, in the last decades, have been struck by huge social crisis.
The protagonists of the new edition of Barista & Farmer – Nicole Battefeld (29 years old, from Germany), Diego Campos (27 yo, from Colombia), Iuliia Dziadevych (25 yo, Ukraine), Cong Yuan (23 yo, China), Matija Matijaško (26 yo, Croatia), Daniel Munari (32 yo, dal Brazil), Sara Ricci (28 yo Italy), Vala Stefansdottir (30 yo, Iceland), Victoria Rovenskaya (26 yo, dalla Russia): these are the the nine baristas, selected among more than 250 applications that came from all over the world, who will be the protagonists of the new edition of Barista & Farmer. The Tenth participant will be unveiled at Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE) in march 2018.
Barista & Farmer is created by Francesco Sanapo in collaboration with Italian Exhibition Group, and SIGEP – Salone Internazionale Gelateria, Pasticceria, Panificazione Artigianale e Caffè, with the patronage of SCA, Specialty Coffee Association. In collaboration with World Coffee Events and the ¡Tierra! Project by Lavazza. Supported by La Cimbali, Faema, Mumac Academy, Urnex and Genovese Coffee; golden media partner Barista Magazine and BarGiornale.
