

Coffee farmers battle rust, debt and market challenges
Colombia's smallest-scale coffee farmers are struggling to keep up. Jairo Martinez and his family were forced to flee their land and abandon their crops in 1996, as violence between left-wing guerilla and right-wing paramilitary forces escalated in his mountain village, La Secreta. Paramilitaries executed close family members and burned his house to the ground. He returned as soon as the region settled, only to confront new challenges. La Roya- an aggressive coffee fungus- w