Members projects

In March 2003, the project started to organize producers in Farmer Field Schools (FFS) to provide a learning structure focused on good agricultural practices, certification and market access. As a result of the improved social coherence brought about by the FFS, the producers set up their own cooperative in 2004, ''Cooperativa Agraria Cafetera Sostenible Valle Ubiriki'' (CACSVU). With support from the DE Foundation, the cooperative began a voluntary certification process. This led to 100 CACSVU members becoming certified in accordance with the UTZ Certified Code of Conduct. The cooperative grew to 300 producers in 2009 and extended the certification to programs like Organic, CAFE Practices and Rainforest Alliance. In addition to certification, the cooperative also worked on quality improvement. This improved quality, combined with certification, meant that members now obtain a far higher price for their coffee. The cooperative set up CETPRO (technical vocational education centre) to train the trainers for the FFS and to supply paid for services to other interested organizations in the area.

In 2008, an impact assessment showed that the project achieved the expected outcome. A second independent evaluation commissioned by the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform (SAI) showed our Peru project to be one of the best performing projects out of 12 projects worldwide and affiliated to SAIs coffee working group.

This follow-up project aims at improving sustainable coffee cultivation and processing for small-scale producers in the Ubiriki, Pichanaki valleys. Activities include:

• Training
• Registration of crop activities by farmers
• Field trials
• Development of cooperative
• Support and outreach