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Ocamonte, a Fair Trade "success story"
In a follow-up on the trip report he wrote for the March newsletter, Florent Gout from the Green Desk in Montreal completes his tales of the February journey to Colombia with staff from Coop Coffees and Cafe Campesino. This month, he writes about APCO -- a recent addition to Coop Coffees' Colombian sourcing partners. Located in central-eastern Colombia along the eastern "cordillera" (mountain range), this coop is a true Fair Trade "success story" as you will see from Florent's report!
After our amazing experience in Valle del Cauca with Fondo Paez’s community, we traveled up north, nearly crossing the entire country to reach the gorgeous city of San Gil. in the region of Santander. By bus, it's about a seven hour trip from Bogota. We arrived in San Gil on February 25th late at night. After a quick rest in the Posada Familiar, we drove another hour through the mountains to the little village (“vereda”) of Hatillo, which is part of Ocamonte municipalty. In Hatillo we were warmly welcome by APCO's Board members at the coop's “headquarters” -- a small office and a large warehouse used for meetings instead of coffee storage. In our first “formal” discussion with APCO’s members we got a general presentation of the organization. The Board members showed us the different projects they've been working on since 2000 with the income from the Fair Trade premiums: construction of a patio and wet processing facility on each farm, a fund for public construction, and a fund for education. It was evident that local municipal authorities were supporting the community of APCO members -- each project was funded by Fair Trade premiums which were matched by the local government. This kind of financial cooperation allows APCO to use the Fair Trade premium precisely how FLO recommends.
The rest of the visit in APCO’s community (February 26th - February 27th) was a type of “guided-tour” to show us concretely, some of the running projects. We visited many farms and were really impressed to see how each farm was equipped for wet processing and drying parchment beans and how each family was supported by APCO to start a diversification project. For example, we stopped by the farm of Don Ramon Perea who, after receiving financing three years ago to purchase 20 chickens as a supplementary source of income, now owns 27,000 chickens (!!!) and runs a true “chicken business”! We also had the chance to meet members’ children in the coop’s kindergarden run by a female member who looks after young children from APCO’s community.
All of the farms that we visited had a remarkable amount of plant diversity and different species of shade trees. We were also impressed by the plant management supported by local technicians from Colombia's Federation of Coffee Farmers' (FNC) departmental committee; one of those 
technicians, Henry Parra accompanied us during our visit. When we visited Gerardo Chacon’s farm on day 2, he explained his plan to keep the trees productive according to a sustainable renewal plan for both coffee trees and shade trees as well. In a tropical area like this, that sees a LOT of daily sun, shade management is more crucial than anywhere else in Colombia. This was a “local element” that we could note in each farm we visited.
On the road back to San Gil, we went through City of Ocamonte’s warehouse (freshly renewed) run by Santander’s Cooperative, where APCO’s members deliver their parchment beans to be stored. The Cooperative of Santander is a regional warehouse network with 18 collecting stations all over the region. From this particular warehouse in Ocamonte, full lots of parchment beans are shipped to the FNC's regional warehouse, called "Alma Café," in the city of Bucarramanga. Previously, the coop of Santander had an agreement with Expocafe to assist in the exportation of their green beans; recently, they switched to the FNC and are now exporting 100% of their coffee through the Federation. All APCO’s members are also members of Santander’s Cooperative so they can use the collecting stations already set up to deliver their harvest. Among the 
various members that make up the larger Santander coop, APCO is the only collective organization and produces the only FLO certified coffee in the region! APCO exported a total of 15 containers in 2009 (8 containers FLO Organic).
The members of the coop were thrilled to meet the people who buy their coffee, face-to-face for the first time. They're now determined to become more involved in the selling of their coffee. They consider relationships with buyers like Cooperative Coffees or TradeAid (NZ) as opportunities to build direct links with their partners on the other side of the supply chain.
Check out more photos of APCO in our photo gallery.
To learn more about APCO, see our producer profile.
