Association of Agrarian Cooperatives of Cuzco (COCLA)

Fair Trade coffee helps provide a just and equitable trade environment between growers and consumers. growers like Rogelia Figueroa Gabera, one of 8,500 members of the Association of Agrarian Cooperatives of Cuzco (COCLA) in Peru, Fair Trade coffee not only helps her family improve their quality of life, it also provides an incentive to improve the quality of the coffee they grow.

“We all want to improve the quality of our coffee, which we never used to do because we lacked the economic means or coffee prices were low or because we did not have a good market for our coffee. Now we have buyers who will give us a better price, and now we have an incentive to keep improving the quality of our coffee,” she said.

Up to 90% of COCLA’s export volume is certified organic, sustainable, or Fair Trade. A challenge came with rising coffee prices; COCLA needed greater access to credit in order to purchase coffee from cooperative members like Gabera who benefit from their involvement in the Fair Trade coffee industry. RSF came together with EcoLogic and Calvert Foundation to provide the additional financing needed to help ensure this socially-beneficial trade partnership.

The loan helped COCLA purchase coffee beans from its members in order to sell to buyers. The line of credit also helps COCLA access Fair Trade markets which allows them to provide an extensive array of services to its members including: an agricultural diversification project; workshops and seminars to address such topics as pest control, organic certification, ecology and conservation; and a microcredit program specifically earmarked for lending to women.

“The loan we made to COCLA is symbolic of what we like to see happening in the Fair Trade coffee industry;social finance lenders coming together to meet the credit needs of coffee producers,” says Esther Park, senior lending manager at RSF.

Friday, September 30th, 2005