About This Coffee
Like many coffee farmers in Latin America, the founding members of Red de Desarrollo Sostensible de Productores Agropecuarios Organero Gera (Red Organero Gera) were hard hit by coffee leaf rust (CLR) in 2012 and 2013. Many members of Red Organero Gera, then an informal cooperative, left coffee, moving to cities or uprooting their coffee trees in favor of more profitable plants. But for many more members, coffee was so ingrained in their lives, they persevered, fighting to make coffee profitable.
In late 2017, 11 farmers from across 4 communities united to formally create Red Organero Gera with the intention of working together to improve production, rebuff CLR and ensure livable incomes for the future. Their name is an homage to their intentions: ‘red’ means ‘network,’ indicating their plan to create a strong network of member farmers working together for a better future.
Soon after they formally registered in January of 2018, members decided to focus on Organic and Fairtrade certifications as way to succeed by accessing international markets, developing their local economies and gaining the agricultural techniques necessary to be profitable coffee farms in the face of low prices and CLR.
Cultivation
All members farmers are Fairtrade and Organic certified. Red Organero Gera focusing on continuing training for members to fuel quality improvement.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
Cherry is selectively handpicked. Farmers typically process cherry on their farms. After pulping, cherry is fermented overnight and then washed in clean water. Wet parchment is sundried. Red Organero Gera hosts trainings to teach farmers the ins and outs of new drying methods.
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.