Improving Market Access for Specialty Coffee Farmers

On Thursday, a group of coffee farmers and cooperative managers from Nicaragua and Honduras stopped by the booth. The group included longtime Fairtrade coffee growers, a couple who had recently been certified and a few farmers who were working toward it.

The group of 13 came to Europe for two weeks to attend the SCAE show. Afterward they were headed to Amsterdam and a couple other towns to meet with roasters and visit cafes and learn more about the path their coffee follows once it leaves the cooperative.

The trip was coordinated by SNV, the Netherlands Development Organization, to help farmers and cooperatives participating in their Specialty Coffee Market Access Project. The project involves 34 cooperatives in Nicaragua and Honduras and reaches over 5,000 families, of those nearly 80% are Fairtrade certified.

Rene Capote, Senior Coffee Officer at Fairtrade International, introduced the group to Wakefield and Company, Ltd., a trader of sustainably sourced green coffees. The group took part in a coffee cupping and some of the cooperative managers dropped off samples of their coffee making an important trade contact for the future.