Flor de Café (San Martin Jilotopeque) FW Organic

In San Martin Jilotopeque, 45+ smallholder producers work with Cooperativa Integral San Martineca Flor de Café (Flor de Café) to cultivate Organic specialty coffee. They use the premiums from their Organic certification to improve their livelihoods and their communities.  

Flor de Café works with FECCEG (La Federación Comercializadora de Café Especial de Guatemala), a federation of cooperatives. With help from FECCEG, Flor de Café members are Fairtrade and Organic certified and can use their certification premiums to fund community projects, farm renovations and new processing infrastructure. FECCEG helped the cooperative build seedling nurseries to support rootstock renovation. Flor de Café also focuses on providing members with training of issues of gender inequality.  

Flor de Café works with member farmers to establish sustainable, ecologically friendly farms. Coffee trees are shaded with fruit trees and other native plants. Farmers use living barriers to prevent soil erosion. These plant barriers also provide fodder for their goats. Flor de Café has helped members with steeper farms to create terraces, dikes and ditches. 

They have established a nearby biofertilizer factory that processes fertilizers from waste products. Café de Flor offers soil sampling services to members to counsel members on the best enrichment practices for their land.  

In addition to coffee, most members also grow avocadoes, bananas and jocote, a fruit tree that can be eaten raw, pickled or prepared with a jam and served with chilies and salt. The cooperative has also helped farmers establish alternative income and sustenance streams including beekeeping and goat herding.

After selectively handpicking cherry, farmers process their cherry individually. They begin by floating harvested cherry to remove any lights. Then, they pulp cherry on hand crank ecopulpers and ferment it for approximately 24 hours. After fermentation, producers wash parchment in clean water and lay it to dry in thin layers on concrete patios for approximately 6 days. Farmers rake parchment frequently to ensure even drying.

Once dry, farmers bring their parchment to a collection and processing center run by FECCEG’s commercial arm, Exportadora de Café Especial de Guatemala. Upon delivery, the center keeps careful track of the weight of each farmers’ contribution to ensure they are paid fairly and that traceability is kept intact. FECCEG has a cupping lab where samples from every lot delivered are evaluated.  

La Federación Comercializadora de Café Especial de Guatemala (FECCEG) was created in 2006 in response to the coffee crisis at the start of the century. The aim of the organization is to develop programs with more impact on the coffee-producing communities, to get better access to the international coffee market and to consolidate export logistics. The organization supports its member organizations and producers with technical support, crop diversification programs, education about integrated farming and support with Organic and Fairtrade certification.