Price Peterson
Price Peterson is the second-generation owner of Hacienda La Esmeralda and the person who turned the family’s Panama farm from a cattle operation into a coffee estate — setting up the Geisha breakthrough his children would carry to fame.
Story
Price took over the estate in the early 1970s, after his father Rudolph (see Peterson family) bought it in 1967 and then left for a United Nations post. By 1975 he had switched the herds to dairy, which still covers about half the land. From the mid-1980s he began treating coffee as a serious crop rather than a sideline, and in 1997 he bought the high-altitude Jaramillo plot on the slopes of Volcán Barú — the ground where the estate’s Geisha trees would flourish (Proud Mary, accessed 2026-07-22). In 2007 he launched a roughly decade-long variety-research project at the family’s El Velo farm, screening hundreds of coffee types.
He and his wife Susan raised the third generation — Daniel, Rachel, and Ricardo — who now run daily operations.
To verify
The 2007 research-project date sits badly with the farm’s own site, which says El Velo was purchased in 2012 (Hacienda La Esmeralda, accessed 2026-07-23). The programme may predate the farm and have moved there later; confirm before citing either date.
These frequently repeated biographical details trace to a single blog and were not independently confirmed by other sources fetched for this note: that Price was born in 1936, holds a PhD in neurochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania, that his wife’s full name is Susan Duff, and that the couple also had a son named Erik (Gafei, accessed 2026-07-22). Confirm the degree and dates before stating them as fact.
Related
Official links
Sources
- Hacienda La Esmeralda — the family’s own site — accessed 2026-07-23
- Proud Mary — Producer: Peterson family, Boquete, Panama — accessed 2026-07-23
- Gafei — Hacienda La Esmeralda family history — accessed 2026-07-23