José Ronaldo is the third generation of a family of coffee producers on the farm. Acquired in 1954 by his grandfather, Ciro Carneiro, the farm from an early age had high productivity and good results in crop management. The name of the farm, Engenho, can be translated as “Mill”. In 1961, the farm passed to José Ronaldo’s father, the well-known Francisco Dias de Castro in the region, known as Chico do Engenho. In 1968, after the first years of study, José Ronaldo went to Rio de Janeiro to study medicine and specialized
n heart surgery. To this day, he divides his time between the operating rooms and the farm, his main passions. Unfortunately, his father, Francisco Dias, died a few years later, in 1978. The Farm then passed to his wife and was later divided between José Ronaldo and the two sisters in 1984. Since then, Fazenda do Engenho has been under the management of José Ronaldo. But it was only in 2002 that the farm began to invest in quality, acquiring new structures to benefit the coffee, building drying terraces and also improving post-harvest processes. Recently, in 2017, other major changes were made to the farm, under the guidance of a new technical consultant, with the aim of increasing production and
improving the quality of coffees in the cup. Investments were made in updated machinery and new yards. José Ronaldo is very detailed and has been closely following all these changes. Happy with the result so far, he believes that the farm will take another leap in quality in the coming years.