Apaneca

The Silvas mill, "Beneficio San Pedro," handles the hand selection and processing of the coffee for La Fany. The Silvas can regulate the processing and quality control considerably more closely than most farmers in El Salvador because they own their own mill. To ensure the highest quality, each lot, variety, and picking date of coffee is carefully isolated from the others.

At Beneficio San Pedro, personnel were hired to flip the beans frequently so that the coffee does not over ferment and dries uniformly. The coffee cherries were pulped upon arrival to remove some of the fruit off the exterior of the coffee parchment.

The Silvas are staunch environmentalists. There are programs that recycle coffee pulp and employ earthworms to break it down into "vermicompost," which is then used to nourish trees. The native trees that surround the coffee plants provide shade from the sun as well as contribute to the formation of a thick layer of organic material that helps to retain soil moisture and prevent erosion. The Silvas also put a lot of effort into preventing erosion by cultivating natural barriers and boring holes to enhance drainage and lessen flooding. In order to gather rain, particularly during the rainy season, and to maintain the farm during the dry, there are rain reservoirs all across the plantation.