- MOCCA’s “El Viverista de Oro” (The Golden Nursery worker) training program is helping Peruvian coffee nurseries to reproduce plants with high genetic purity.
Azucena Tafur is a nursery owner and a coffee producer from the town of Chachapoyas, a city located in the department of Amazonas, Peru. She has been growing coffee for 5 years and has a nursery where she produces and sells plants to other producers in the area.
Like other coffee nurseries in Peru, Azucena faced difficulties due to the lack of access to technical knowledge to guarantee the proper management of her nursery.
“When I started the coffee nursery business, I faced hardships because I did not fertilize according to the phenological stage and age of the plant,and consequently, my plants were weak and prone to pests and diseases,” Azucena recalls
In December 2022, Azucena completed the training modules of El Viverista de Oro, a MOCCA initiative that provides coffee nurseries with new knowledge for the implementation of better production techniques and access to quality genetic material, as well as an understanding of the market to enable them to increase the profitability of their nurseries.
The training provided by El Viverista de Oro allowed Azucena to strengthen her technical skills in fertilization, nursery substrates, and pest and disease control.
“In addition, the good practices learned at MOCCA helped me double the yields of my plot and also harvest coffee of better quality and genetic purity,” she says.
Identifying genetic purity in coffee plantations
World Coffee Research, leader of the research activities of the MOCCA program, carried out a study and analysis of Azucena Tafur’s coffee plantation, determining a genetic purity of 95% of the Marseillaise variety.
“When I was given the results of the study that World Coffee Research did in my plantation, it was a great surprise to find out that I have a genetic purity of 95% in the Marseillaise variety, now I am reproducing these plants in my coffee nursery and selling them to other producers. I have more and more customers and my income is increasing. With the profits I am making improvements to my house and expanding the size of my nursery.”
Azucena Tafur | Coffee producer | Amazonas, Perú
Azucena Tafur is a member of the Flor del Café Cooperative and her short-term goal is to increase the number of plants produced in her nursery to provide other growers in her community with high quality planting materials that will guarantee the success of their future plantations.
In Amazonas (Peru), MOCCA works in partnership with RGC Coffee, providing coffee growers with technical assistance on good agronomic practices and organic certification issues to help them increase their productivity and profitability.
MOCCA in Perú
In Peru, MOCCA has established alliances with buyers and other organizations, through which it will train more than 16,000 coffee producers (40% women), providing integration into higher value markets, technical assistance, research, access to quality genetic material. and promoting catalytic financing models.
About RGC Coffee
With this partnership, we are working towards increasing the productivity of coffee farmers in the Amazonas, Peru, improve the quality and consistency of exported coffee, and increase the volume of exported coffee . In addition, we hope to improve good practices in renovation and rehabilitation, and increase the number of producers certified as Organic, Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance, Café Practices, among others.
About World Coffee Research
World Coffee Research is a pre-competitive, multi-stakeholder platform that enables the global coffee industry to invest in cutting-edge agricultural R&D to transform coffee production into a profitable and sustainable livelihood that can meet growing demand while protecting natural resources. WCR leads MOCCA’s activities related to (large) nurseries, as well as research and dissemination activities in coffee.
