About This Coffee
CENFROCAFE began in October 1999 in Palla Peña, a town in Tabaconas, a district of San Ignacio. Originally named Central de Asociaciones, the group was formed by 11 associations that represented a total of 220 producers.
The cooperative soon grew beyond its original purposes and began working with CEPICAFE, a cooperative for smallholders in Peru. CENFROCAFE exported its first 60 containers with help from CEPICAFE in 2006 and in 2009, became a direct exporter itself. Today, CENFROCAFE boasts over 3,000 members, organized into 84 associations.
CENFROCAFE’s work on improving member livelihoods and increasing coffee quality has already seen significant results. Farmers with CENFROCAFE have an average yield of 1,133 kilograms, about 18.8-60kg bags per hectare. This is almost a full 60kg bag more than the average organic yield of 1,080 kilogram, or 18-60kg bags per hectare. For farmers with smaller plots, this can make an enormous difference in their income and ultimately, their lives.
To accomplish this, they focus on the educational, financial and social needs of their members. CENFROCAFE provides trainings at both the farmer and association level on best agricultural practices in organic coffee farming, infrastructural improvements and more. A solidarity fund helps associations make inputs such as organic fertilizers more accessible for farmers. Additional funds, bolstered by the Fairtrade Social Premium, help farmers pay for healthcare, funerals, farm maintenance and improvements and more. The Social Premium also funds several awareness and prevention days to help communities increase overall health.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
After selectively handpicking their cherry along the steep, often terraced slopes, farmers process cherry on their own farms. After pulping and fermenting, farmers wash parchment in clean water and lay to sundry on patios or raised beds. More recently, many farmers have constructed solar greenhouses with raised beds. Drying space is at a premium on the farmer’s small plots of land. These beds help maximize capacity with minimal spatial impact. Overflow cherry dries on screens in garage lofts or even in the eaves of farmers’ homes.
Once dry, farmers deliver their parchment to a CENFROCAFE purchasing center in town. After grading for quality, the warehouse manager pays farmers for their parchment. CENFROCAFE takes great care to ensure that prices reflect the quality of the coffee and that farmers are fairly compensated for their work. As Anselmo Huaman Moreta, Board of Directors for CENFROCAFE says, “Our coffee is being recognized in the market for the quality we produce. We are receiving a fair price for our efforts and our members can be proud again to be farmers.”
Coffee in Peru
Peru holds exceptional promise as a producer of high-quality coffees. The country is the largest exporter of organic Arabica coffee globally. With extremely high altitudes and fertile soils, the country’s smallholder farmers also produce some stunning specialty coffees.
Though coffee arrived in Peru in the 1700s, very little coffee was exported until the late 1800s. Until that point, most coffee produced in Peru was consumed locally. When coffee leaf rust hit Indonesia in the late 1800s, a country central to European coffee imports at the time, Europeans began searching elsewhere for their fix. Peru was a perfect option.
Between the late 1800s and the first World War, European interests invested significant resources into coffee production in Peru. However, with the advent of the two World Wars, England and other European powers became weakened and took a less colonialist perspective. When the British and other European land owners left, their land was purchased by the government and redistributed to locals. The Peruvian government repurchased the 2 million hectares previously granted to England and distributed the lands to thousands of local farmers. Many of these farmers later grew coffee on the lands they received.
Today, Peruvian coffee growers are overwhelmingly small scale. Farmers in Peru usually process their coffee on their own farms. Most coffee is Fully washed. Cherry is usually pulped, fermented and dried in the sun on raised beds or drying sheds. Drying greenhouses and parabolic beds are becoming more common as farmers pivot towards specialty markets.
After drying, coffee will then be sold in parchment to the cooperative. Producers who are not members of a cooperative will usually sell to a middleman.
The remoteness of farms combined with their small size means that producers need either middlemen or cooperatives to help get their coffee to market. Cooperative membership protects farmers greatly from exploitation and can make a huge difference to income from coffee. Nonetheless, currently only around 15-25% of smallholder farmers have joined a coop group.