The Coffee Cooperatives of Peru

Peru’s coffee market is highly fragmented, with many cooperatives and associations ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand ‘socios’—small-scale farmers typically managing up to 5 hectares of land. While the cooperative model remains popular and widely adopted, larger multinational companies are beginning to take bigger market shares, leveraging competitive pricing. Farmers can choose to join a cooperative, selling their parchment coffee in exchange for a percentage of the end-of-year profits based on their contribution. However, they are not obliged to sell to the cooperative and can opt for higher offers elsewhere. Henry Clifford, a DRW Trader, provides more insights on this in his article ‘Working with Small Producers: Lessons from Sustainable Sourcing’.

Despite the increasing competition, the majority of cooperatives DRWakefield partners with enjoy the loyalty of their members. This loyalty is built through long-standing relationships and the added services that cooperatives provide, such as expert agronomy advice on harvest and processing, as well as education and healthcare support for farmers and their families. Additionally, cooperatives incentivise farmers to produce higher-quality coffee by offering a portion of the year-end profits for coffees that score 83 points or higher in quality, encouraging the pursuit of specialty-grade production.

Cooperatives typically assess yields early in the year, around January or February, by sending agronomists to check the harvest potential of each farm. This data is then logged into the cooperative’s system, allowing them to estimate the total output for the season. For example, if a farmer with 3 hectares is predicted to produce 50 quintales (where 1 quintal equals 55kg of parchment coffee, or approximately 46kg of green coffee), they are allowed to deliver up to that amount. In recent years, new rules have been introduced to improve traceability and meet the requirements of regulations like the EUDR, ensuring farmers cannot sell coffee from other farms under their name, thus maintaining transparency in the supply chain.

In 2022/23, the Peruvian coffee industry experienced a price crisis driven by a sudden spike in Colombian coffee prices, where differentials jumped from +10 to +80. In response, Colombian buyers, needing to cover their shortages, began purchasing Peruvian coffee at elevated prices. Large buyers, including multinationals, arrived directly at farm villages with trucks to acquire coffee, offering prices that local cooperatives struggled to match.

My recent trip to Peru in early September 2024 came during what is typically the height of the coffee harvest. However, this year, the season had been shortened due to climate change. While coffee was still being harvested in the highest-altitude areas, most of the trees were already bare. A longer and hotter-than-usual summer had left the trees looking tired, with drooping leaves and in desperate need for rain.

Few quick facts about Peruvian Coffee:

• Produce a total of +/- 4 million bags a year
• Small local consumption <5%
• Harvest from May to September
• Shipping between June to November
• Rain usually occurs between:
  • July to September (induces flowering)
  • January to March (cherry development)
• Largest Fairtrade and Organic coffee producer of coffee in the world

CECANOR

I started my trip in Chiclayo, where I was warmly welcomed by Victor and Isabel of PROASSA. They have been leading the charge in exporting Peruvian coffee since the nineties, with a focus on the Café Femenino brand—an initiative that invests in education, healthcare, and infrastructure for women farmers. Café Femenino empowers women in coffee-growing regions by giving them decision-making power over the coffee they grow, ensuring that the income benefits the entire household, rather than being squandered elsewhere. You can read more about Café Femenino here.

PROASSA, along with CECANOR, the cooperative arm of the project, has grown to encompass over 1,000 producers organised into 70 committees. These committees, which are regional sub-divisions of the cooperative, hold monthly meetings to discuss challenges and opportunities in coffee production. They source coffee from three key regions:

• Lambayeque: Lower volume and productivity, with an average yield of 8 bags per hectare, but delivering higher quality coffee.
• Cajamarca: Medium volume and productivity, yielding around 15 bags per hectare with medium-quality coffee.
• Amazonas: The highest volume and productivity region, producing up to 25 bags per hectare with medium quality coffee.

Pickers in these regions earn about 50 sol per day ($14) or 12 sol per latte of cherry (roughly $4). In peak season, a picker may harvest 4 lattes, but towards the end of the season, that number often drops to 2 lattes, increasing the overall cost per kilogram of coffee.

During my visit, we stopped by a small producer group’s wet mill and community centre in Lambayeque, where I was introduced to an indigenous group of female producers. I shared a traditional lunch with them, gaining insight into their way of life. The sense of community there was striking, with everyone relying on each other for support—so different from the individualistic cultures of cities like London or Amsterdam, where I come from.

Proassa was a pioneer in exporting organic coffee from Peru’s north, back when the idea of organic farming was still seen as a niche, and many mocked the concept due to its higher production costs. But Victor and Isabel’s vision proved forward-thinking, as people quickly realised that organic farming wasn’t just better for the environment but also improved long-term soil health, coffee quality, and the well-being of the farmers themselves.

After spending the night at Victor and Isabel’s home, we embarked on a long drive to Lonya Grande, one of the main coffee-growing villages in Peru’s Amazonas region. Along the way, we stopped at Bagua to stay with Miss Erlita, one of the larger producers for Café Femenino. Her farm was in full bloom with coffee flowers, a beautiful sight that highlighted the cyclical nature of coffee production.

As we continued our journey in a 4×4 pickup truck, Isabel made a few calls to arrange for the collection of coffee bags further down the road, that I later helped load up into the centre in Lonya.

Lonya is just one of many collection centres for the cooperative, managed by Omar, who oversees quality control and pricing. At the centre, the coffee is rigorously checked for defects, moisture content, and screen size. The goal is to evaluate the ‘rendimiento’ (yield), which indicates how much exportable green coffee is left after milling the parchment and removing defects.

Here’s how the process works:

1. The bags are weighed and sampled upon arrival at the collection centre.
2. A 300-gram sample of parchment is milled and screened, with a minimum of 70% needing to be S15 or higher.
3. Defects are removed, and the remaining green coffee is weighed to determine yield.
4. If 80% of the 300-gram parchment sample is deemed exportable, the price is adjusted to the prior’s day settlement based on that day’s New York C settlement price for 80% yield. The coops, like other traders in the region, use this system to ensure fair and accurate pricing for the farmers.

We continued our journey to a place called El Ron, to meet the Quispe family. Their farm has around 10 hectares and lays on a hill with a beautiful view over the village. The plots are divided up between the family members (father, daughters and daughters in law). 

Varieties planted are Catimor, Caruso, Typica, Costa Rica and Catuai. There’s a wet mill on-site and natural water flows from the mountain. Coffee cherries are pulped and dried on patio, and then once they reach a 20% humidity level are moved down the hill to their house where they are further dried on raised beds with a ‘carpe soleil’ (plastic cover). 

In the village, they have access to yellow-blue dry parchment cleaning machines, shared among all cooperative members. This equipment is a significant asset, allowing them to pre-clean their coffee by removing stones, defects, and low screen sizes. By using this process, they can deliver a much cleaner coffee to the collection centres, improving their “rendimiento” (yield), and securing a higher price for their product. This is another great example of how cooperative investments benefit all members by improving both income and coffee quality.

Sol & Café

Founded in 2003 with funding from the church and the NGO Karitas, Sol & Café began its journey towards coffee production. Javier, a key figure in the cooperative, helped structure the organisation, with DRWakefield being their first foreign buyers. In 2006, they obtained their organic certification, and soon after, they added Fairtrade and Rainforest certifications to their credentials. Today, Sol & Café consists of 74 committees with over 1,000 members, exporting approximately 160 containers of coffee annually. A strong emphasis is placed on supporting the cooperative members, known as ‘socios,’ by building schools for their children and providing free healthcare for all.

Our visit began at the cooperative’s nursery, where coffee seeds are planted and monitored before being distributed to members for cultivation. Sol & Café is not only progressive in agricultural practices but also in promoting sustainable innovations to benefit its farmers. For instance, instead of planting coffee trees in traditional plastic buckets, they have introduced biodegradable alternatives made from algae. This reduces plastic usage and, more importantly, prevents the need to revisit the fields to remove plastic while also ensuring the root systems of the plants develop without tangling, It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?

Harry, one of their top agronomists explained me that 1cm of healthy organic soil (carbon compound) takes naturally about 100 years to form. Nature needs centuries for the leaves to be digested by the earth and with the help of worms to reach the high-quality earth that is needed to grow organic crops. He and his team are going up the mountains at 2000+ meters altitude to fetch this very healthy soil and mould and micro-organisms. They bring it back to the nursery to produce something that they call biochar. This biochar is mixed with manure, phosphorus, potassium, and other natural ingredients to create a liquid fertiliser that is sprayed on the coffee trees’ roots. Harry stressed the importance of applying fertiliser right after the rains, to avoid it being washed away, especially on steep plantations that are not terraced, as he advises.

The nursery sits next to two vast school halls built by Sol & Café, with more under construction. Funny enough, these new buildings are made from bamboo that the cooperative produces themselves 🙂

In 2013, Peru was hit by a severe outbreak of coffee leaf rust (roya), which prompted many farmers to replace their traditional coffee varieties with Catimor, a more rust-resistant plant. I saw two types of Catimor during my visit: Catimor Hoja Obscura (dark/red leaf) and Catimor Hoja Verde (green leaf). The green leaf variety is known to produce better-tasting coffee.

We then travelled to Cajamarca to visit a specialty coffee farm called El Limón, where I met Mr. Eufemia Delgado and his wife. Eufemia explained that all his wealth is invested in his farm, rather than in a bank. While organic farming yields about 20% less coffee compared to conventional methods, the higher price he receives for organic coffee compensates for the lower yield.

Eufemia also spoke about the temptation some farmers face when coffee prices are high—to abandon organic farming and sell their coffee as conventional. However, his vision is to stay disciplined and reinvest his earnings into the farm, rather than spending it elsewhere, like buying property in the city after a good year.

Next to the traditional washed method, he processes honey and naturals including geishas. He showed me how he carefully dries the cherries in 3 stages as seen in the photos. 

Café Selva Norte, ECOTIERRA

I then visited one of the largest and most efficient milling factories in the region called Café Selva Norte (CSN), part of the ECOTIERRA group. The milling plant has an incredible capacity of processing up to 10 metric tonnes per hour, with around 90% of this being organic coffee. The cleanliness and efficiency of the mill were remarkable, featuring cutting-edge machinery imported from Cimbria in Austria. This ensures a highly streamlined process with a continuous flow of coffee moving in and out of the plant, maintaining high volume and liquidity throughout.

They were processing low-grade stock, essentially coffee beans that would typically be discarded. Yet, through a series of de-stoners and separation machines, the factory was able to transform what was essentially unusable coffee into a more refined product.

FRONTERA – Cooperativa Agraria Frontera San Ignacio

Next, we drove to the town of San Ignacio to meet one of my favourite cooperatives, FRONTERA. Nearly all of their coffee is Fairtrade and Organic certified and they export around 60-80 containers annually. Coffee here goes through several quality checks and is cupped six times before it leaves for export! We work with Frontera on two different projects El Oso (the bear) and Las Damas (women’s coffee), which you can read about here: El Oso Update 2022 and Las Damas de San Ignacio.

Accompanied by Luzmilla, a key figure and anchor in the organisation, we visited several farms and came across a variety of coffee cultivars planted with help of World Coffee Research, including Marselessa, Imperial, Paraneima, Mundo Novo, Tabi, and Bourbon. However, many high-potential varieties often end up being mixed with commercial lots. This happens for two reasons: there’s a lack of demand and confidence in selling these coffees at a premium, and the Geisha and Bourbon trees are randomly placed throughout the farm, making it challenging—though not impossible—to keep them separated. Finally, we enjoyed a splendid day and evening with one of their oldest committees, CESARA, which consists entirely of women (damas).

Whilst there, I met with Robert, the husband of miss Cynthia Monetenegro. He showed off some of his advanced gear and how they are measuring BRICS in the cherry before processing it as an anaerobic lot.

CAPAA – Cooperative Alonso de Alvarado

Following my time in San Ignacio, I travelled to Moyabamba, with the primary goal of getting to know CAPAA (Cooperative Alonso de Alvarado). It is a relatively young organisation comprising 240 producers, with an annual export volume of around 30 FCL with lots of potential for growth They started exporting in 2018 and, being located in eastern Peru, their harvest begins earlier in the year compared to other regions, starting as early as February, with peak harvest occurring from May to August. While often regarded as a lower-grown area, it also features many higher-altitude zones. CAPAA has recently begun growing organic Robusta and operates two milling plants—one in Chiclayo and another in Moyabamba—capable of processing 1 to 2 FCL per day.

Moyabamba lies within the province of San Martin. In the 1990s, this area was primarily known for coco tree cultivation, but law enforcement and defence initiatives led to a significant reduction in acreage. Today, most of that land has been replaced with coffee.

This is a video of their small factory, where I explain in a nutshell how coffee comes in as parchment and goes out as exportable green coffee product:  

With Omar, I also toured their centre of excellence, led by Don Oscar and Doña Pilar. This facility serves as a training centre where farmers can receive education and learn to cup their coffees professionally.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my experiences, and I look forward to sharing more insights from this incredible coffee origin!