CRS Project Update

The objective of our participation in the CAFÉ project is to help small-scale coffee farmers better understand the basic quality and management expectations in order to sell to international markets and to help farmer groups create concrete steps to overcome those challenges. But first it was important to get our feet in to the mud and, in coordination with the CRS national project teams, understand the farmer’s situation on the farm and at their wet and dry processing plants in order to offer practical feedback to them – tailored to their realities and with the intention of moving them further up the quality ladder. And ultimately, this should help them achieve more attractive prices on the international market.

During our El Salvador “Quality tour” – a CoopCoffees delegation comprised of Mark Glenn of Conscious Coffees, Boulder, CO; Glenn Lathrop of Desert Sun Coffee Roasters, Durango, CO; TJ Semanchin of Kickapoo Coffee, Viroqua, WI; and Monika Firl of Cooperative Coffees – visited seven of the coffee farmer regions and held a collective quality cupping session with the farmers representatives from the 13 groups participating in the project.

“If you're prepared to buy from a private estate farm or private exporter, El Salvador seems to be filled with quality gems of all shapes and sizes,” says Mark Glenn of Conscious Coffees. “But within the framework of this project, we want to see what would it take for these small-scale producers to deliver the same level of quality and have access to be able to enjoy the same economical benefits?”

In similar style, a second “Quality team” comprised of Maty de Barrios and Tripp Pomeroy of Café Campesino, Americus, GA; James Hottenroth of Doma Coffee, Post Falls, ID; Caleb Nichols of Kickapoo Coffee, Viroqua, WI and Bill Harris of Cooperative Coffees recently visited two of the grower regions in Guatemala and conducted cupping and roasted coffee training sessions with producer representatives from across the country.  As Bill reports:

"The Guatemala CAFE Livelihood Workshop was a success in every respect! A tremendous amount of information covering all aspects of specialty coffee production was shared between participating cooperative representatives and our team of coffee roasters during our 6 days together.  And it was quite apparent that friendships were being formed throughout the experience.  During our conclusions and evaluation sessions, many of the over 30 representatives from 5 cooperatives stated that that it had been a remarkable week together and they hoped that we would all gather again soon.  I noted the obvious cohesion that had developed within the group and I can't wait to get back down to Guatemala for more productive workshops like this one!"

These experiences have broadened our collective understanding of the struggle small-scale coffee farmers must face on a daily basis. We heard the same story again and again in El Salvador: Without market and price stability, farmers are forced to sell their harvests however they can and that often means near their cost of production or even at a loss! For the cooperatives, that means a loss of potential product and that instable pattern of available sales volumes wreaks havoc for the cooperative’s attempts to establish and maintain commercial partners. This in turn leads to a vicious cycle of abandoning production and quality improvements, which is of course detrimental to everyone along to production and marketing chain.

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