We are partnering with our friends at Cafe Imports to recognize the amazing work of women growing and producing fine coffees around the world. Beginning in 2018, we will be releasing coffee selections from women producers as part of our Women Coffee Producers Collection. While facing inequality and hardships within the coffee industry, programs like this help to empower women who work in many facets of the coffee supply chain throughout the world. These coffees come from both women’s only cooperatives, and from women who are members of mixed-gender cooperatives. Women producers who are part of Cafe Imports’ Women Coffee Producers program are paid additional premiums per pound for their coffee. There are no stipulations with the premiums, and often these women choose to apply them to current projects in their communities, rather than applying to their cooperatives or farms. These community projects include such things as health-care access and improving education.
Colombia: Growing For The Future
Formed nearly 20 years ago by 80 women coffee producers, AMACA (Asociacion de Mujeres Productoras Agropecuarias del Cauca) still follows the same mantra today: to improve the quality of life for their members and their members’ families. Luz Marina Sanchez is the legal representative of AMACA, which today has over 140 active members, all are women who are also heads of their households. “As for the future, we have many, many things that we would wish. With the expectation of improving the quality of life for our families.” said Luz. When asked what she would say to people who may drink the coffee she produces, “I would tell them to drink with full confidence that this comes from women, and from a family environment. This is coffee done by hand. 100% purely from specialty farms of women.” This collection will truly give you a taste of the hard work women put into these selected coffees day in, and day out.
Brazil: Generations of Women Producers
Fazenda Serrado is a 32-hectare farm that is located in the Minas Gerais region of Brazil, perched high in the mountains of the South Minas Water Spa Circuit. Valéria Dias de Castro Pereira is one of the farm’s co-owners, and comes from a long line of women coffee producers. By reinvesting the premiums paid through the program back into the water tanks on the farm, the Pereira family continues the tradition of growing excellent coffees.