- The good coffee growing practices learned through the MOCCA and Becamo alliance helped Honduran producer José Valerio Díaz to double his productivity.
- In Honduras, MOCCA is supported by the Dutch company Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE), which owns numerous brands of beverages (coffee, tea and hot chocolate), as well as Keurig Dr Peppper (KDP).
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.
José Valerio Díaz inspects the condition of the plants to make sure they are growing well as he walks around his farm. “Pruning techniques have helped us increase productivity,” he says with a smile.
José Valerio, a 47 year old man, lives with his wife and children in San Manuel Colohete, a municipality surrounded by mountains in the department of Lempira, Honduras. Coffee production is one of the most important economic activities in the municipality of San Martin Colohete thanks to its elevation of 1667 meters above sea level and its geography.
When he was young, José Valerio traveled to other departments of Honduras such as Copán and Ocotepeque, to work as a cutter in coffee farms. At that stage of his life he became interested in establishing a small plantation that yielded 4 quintals, in 2006. “I became interested in coffee because I liked the cultivation process, I saw that other farmers made a good income and I wanted to give a better life to my family,” recalls José.
In 2020, José joined the Program “Maximizing Opportunities in Coffee and Cocoa in the Americas# (MOCCA), which works in western Honduras in partnership with Becamo, with the support of Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE) and Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP), providing coffee producers with technical assistance, access to quality planting material and integration into higher value markets under an inclusive marketing model.
“The good pruning, shade management and nutrition practices taught by MOCCA and Becamo trainings helped me double the productivity of my coffee plantation. I used to produce 15 quintals of coffee per manzana and today I am producing 32 quintals per manzana.”
José Valerio Díaz
Coffee producer
Lempira, Honduras
With the clear objective of improving his family’s living conditions , José invested his earnings in paying for his children’s education, making improvements to his house and buying a solar panel to generate electricity for his home.
Becamo: financing to promote the renovation and rehabilitation of coffee plantations
Becamo established an alliance with MOCCA, through which more than 4,600 coffee growers (30% women) have been trained to increase their productivity, quality and profitability. At the same time, Becamo has made available financing lines for producers part of its supply chain for:
- Acquisition of inputs
- Payment of labor
- Acquisition of coffee processing equipment
- Coffee renovation
“In 2022 I was granted a credit of 80 thousand Lempiras (USD $3,265). I used the money to invest in fertilizers, pay for labor and renovate 1.5 manzanas of coffee. I received the advise of MOCCA program technicians during the whole process to obtain the financing”, says coffee grower José Valerio Díaz.
