- An initiative to sign purchase/sale contracts connects Guatemalan coffee producers with the exporter Peter Schoenfeld S.A., a member of the Volcafe Group.
- MOCCA is a 7-year initiative funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) through its Food for Progress Program, which seeks to improve agricultural productivity and expand trade in agricultural products. The MOCCA project is being executed by a consortium led by TechnoServe.
Carlos Teletor is a 23-year-old young adult from the municipality of Cubulco, Baja Verapaz., who has been dedicated to coffee growing for five years, when he established a small nursery with the dream of becoming a large producer.
Over the years, Carlos has found in coffee a way to make a living and to support his family, made up of his wife and two daughters. However, the traditional marketing scheme that includes multiple intermediaries for the sale of coffee has reduced his earnings in previous years.
MOCCA and Volcafe, aware of this problem in the marketing chain, promote an initiative that benefits producers with training in good agricultural practices to obtain better production yields, while at the same time assuring them a market by signing contracts that bring them closer to better market opportunities and strengthen their direct commercial relations with the exporting company.
In 2021, 104 coffee producers signed purchase/sale contracts with MOCCA and Volcafe. In 2022, the number of producers who signed contracts rose to almost 200.
“With the good practices learned in the MOCCA and Volcafe trainings, my yields increased. In the first contract I committed to sell 19 quintals of dry parchment coffee, for the 2022-2023 harvest, I signed a contract again and my goal is to sell at least 25 quintals.”
Carlos Teletor
Carlos invests his profits in better food for his family,and in fertilizers and other inputs for his farm.
The partnership between MOCCA and Volcafe provided technical training to more than 2,000 coffee producers in Baja Verapaz to help them increase their yields and profitability through the implementation of good agricultural practices.
“Since I’m applying the fertilization recommendations, pruning practices and tissue management that I learned in the trainings, the productivity of my plantation has increased by 30%. Now I have a better income, I have been able to buy a pulper and build a patio to dry my coffee,” said Tomas Lopez
Lopez, a 60 year old man, has been able to sell up to 70 quintals of dried parchment coffee, thanks to the initiative of MOCCA and Volcafe to sign purchase/sale contracts.
MOCCA in Guatemala
In Guatemala, MOCCA has entered into partnerships with buyers and other organizations through which it trains more than 17,500 coffee producers (40% women), integrating them into higher-value markets, technical assistance, research, access to quality genetic material and promoting catalytic financing models.
About Volcafe
Together with Peter Schoenfeld S.A., a member of the Volcafe group, we are strengthening the capacities of more than 2,000 coffee growers in Baja Verapaz to improve their productivity, quality, access to planting material, and financing under better conditions. The company directly connects coffee growers with markets willing to pay more for quality through an online platform called Trackvia.
