Alpacas and Coffee

What do alpacas and coffee have in common besides the fact they both come from South America? Allow me to introduce myself, Don Humberto to my Latin friends and Bert to Americans. Before raising alpacas I was a coffee trader for 25 years. Why is this relevant? Please enjoy the nice coffee pictures and read beyond to find out.

When I first started in the coffee business in the mid 1970s it was an old and venerable though somewhat stagnant and tired business. Per capita consumption of coffee had peaked in the early 1960s and young people for the most part did not drink the stuff. My colleagues complained that the quality of the coffee being imported had deteriorated. The established brands, competing for market share largely based on advertising (as opposed to quality) were boring. All of that changed dramatically with a devastating frost in Brazil in 1976 when coffee prices soared. Coffee became a very interesting business for producers, consumers and allied trades. Some years later, with the advent of the specialty coffee movement and the rise of companies like Starbucks the romance of coffee was recaptured, coffee became an attractive, even sexy, commodity again; quality began to improve as did consumption. Coffee in all its complexity, coming from diverse countries throughout the globe and the livelihood for so many people, began attracting a lot of attention. Even more so lately with greater interest in organic products, issues of sustainability and fair trade. When I consider the alpaca business and its opportunities, it reminds me of the coffee business before its “discovery.” Alpacas share some of the characteristics I have cited above: they are unique, have a compelling history, come from exotic places and their value is based on quality. While on the face of it one could question the economic purpose of raising them in North America (as opposed to South America where they have huge numbers of them and a well established fiber industry) as with coffee there is a story to be told here.

Susquehanna Farms, 1827 Glenville Road,  Havre de Grace, Maryland  21078
Telephone: (410) 734-7410   Contact Us