Rio Azul - Guatemala

Info on other Guatemala cooperatives

Fast Facts on Coop Rio Azul

186 Members - 35 are women - All live near Jacaltenango
76 Members are enrolled in the organic certification program
10 are in transition to organic
Annual Production - Approximately 160,000 pounds of green coffee
Founded in 1967, Joined FLO register in 1992, Organic Cert in 2005
28 members in bee keeping project -over 15,000 lbs of honey
Local Language - Mayan group Jacaltec often called Popti
Annual assembly is within the 3 first month of the year
Its anniversary is on December 12
In 2007, exported 7 conainers of FT organic coffee and 3 transitionnal For 2008, plan to export 7.5 containers of FT org and 3.5 transitionnal

Located in the remote western Guatemala town of Jacaltenango, Coop Rio Azul is a 186 member cooperative. Founded in 1967, the cooperative has a long history of producing some of the best coffee exported under the famed “Huehuetenango” mark.

The members of Rio Azul all live no more than a 1.5 hour walk to the wet mill in Jacaltenango. This allows the cooperative complete control over several stages of the quality process. Coffee is picked by members until early afternoon and then delivered in cherry form to the mill each day beginning around 3 pm. All coffee is depulped, fermented, washed and dried at the coop's mill. Adjacent to the mill is a warehouse and office - capable of storing about 500 sacks of pergamino. Once a container quantity of pergamino is accumulated, a tranfer to the exporter's warehouse in the city of Huehuetenango (4 hours away) is organized. This coffee is then transferred to Guatemala City for final processing and export preparation in an organic dry mill.

The altitude of the plots farmed by members of Rio Azul ranges from 1,200 meters to 1,600 meters. All of the production will be graded SHB (strictly hard bean), the best grade available, due to the carefully attention given in the central processing facility and the excellent conditions for growing coffee in this area. They have a production of about 18 "quintal" for an hector.

Rio Azul receives assistance from Oxfam in the form of capacity building grants to provide technical processing and administrative training.   An alternative income project to raise bees for improved pollination and honey production has been quite successful. Twenty eight farmers currently participate and each manages 10 boxes. They typically produce about 50 pounds of honey resulting in annual honey production for the coop of over 15,000 pounds.

They also received a support from the organization AECI, to improve the infrastructure. Their are changing their wet mill, that is now transitional into a more ecologic one.

All members of the cooperative are of the Mayan group Jacaltec, also commonly called Pobp’ al Ti’ or Popti. About 40,000 people speak this language – most living in the Guatemala department of Huehuetenango with some living just across the border in Chiapas, Mexico. The cooperative's meetings are conducted in Popti as well as Spanish.  Cooperative Coffees will import one container (about 41,000 pounds) of coffee in 2006 from Rio Azul and intends to purchase one and a half containers in 2007.

Its board of director is actually constituted of: Francisco Danchez Miguel, president; Maria Esteban Ros, Secretary; and Santiago Silvestre, treasoery.

Their main priorities for the year 2008 are: to find credit to be able to pay the coffee immediately, to promote the organic production to have more member certified, and to increase the productivity.

Check out more photos of our farmer partner, Rio Azul.

Other Info on Rio Azul
Oxfam Article on Business Assistance Program
Mayacert Organic Certificate 2006
Mayacert Organic Certificate 2007