How much coffee can $14 million buy?

Mar 22, 2016

A 20-acre farm’s worth

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

When needing change for coffee, sometimes checking between the couch cushions is a good place to start. Trying to find enough money to buy an entire coffee farm however, might require more financing.

Kona Joe Coffee, a 20-acre, family owned coffee farm on the Kona Coast of Hawaii’s big island, is for sale with a price tag of $14 million according to Pacific Business News.

The farm is currently owned by Joe Alban, an orthopedic surgeon, and his wife Deepa, an artist. The property is also one of the world’s first trellised coffee farms, meaning the plant can grow on wires and help expose it to sunlight.

Coffee plantation

Eighteen of the property’s 20 acres are filled with Kona Coffee trees with irrigation and trellising. A 12,000-square-foot processing and roasting plant, commercial kitchen, dry mill, office, retail store, climate controlled storage and outdoor staff kitchen are also located on the farm.

The buyer will also receive a 1,368-square-foot home and three mobile homes to for seasonal migrant workers to stay in.

According to worldatlas.com, the top 10 coffee producing countries as of 2014 are:

10. Guatemala
9. Uganda
8. Mexico
7. Honduras
6. India
5. Ethiopia
4. Indonesia
3. Colombia
2. Vietnam
1. Brazil

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.