Rosa Judith Rodríguez, a 54 year old woman and a mother of three children, has been dedicated to coffee growing since she was very young. She owns a small farm in the municipality of San Juan Opico, department of La Libertad (El Salvador). In 2021 she joined the MOCCA training program with the interest of…
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…
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…
The good fertilization practices that Dominga Díaz learned in the training at MOCCA allowed her to double the cocoa yields of her farm and improve her family’s income. 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…
MOCCA and Mercon Coffee Group provide technical training to coffee producers in Jinotega (Nicaragua), to help them increase their productivity and profitability. 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…
The good agricultural practices learned in the trainings provided by MOCCA, Lutheran World Relief and Cacao Verapaz, allowed cocoa farmers in Alta Verapaz (Guatemala) to double their production and increase their income. MOCCA is a 7-year initiative funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) through its Food for Progress Program, which seeks to…
With the support of the MOCCA program and Lutheran World Relief, the CACAONICA cooperative, from Waslala, Nicaragua, expanded its reach from 290 cocoa farmers to almost 500 producers in 2 years. 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…
Cacao in Honduras is cultivated under traditional shade tree species (Inga sp., Erythrina sp., Gliricidia sp.), fruit and timber species deliberately planted or selected and managed from natural regeneration. Typically, the shade canopy of these cacao plantations is poorly managed resulting in high tree density and heavy shading, thus affecting cacao yield performance overtime. We…
200 coffee producers located in Huehuetenango and Baja Verapaz have received loans for working capital through the alliance between MOCCA and Fundación Génesis Empresarial. 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…
MOCCA supports more than 1,000 coffee producers in the departments of Ocotepeque, Copán, and Lempira to help them eliminate the barriers that prevent them from becoming more productive and profitable. 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…
MOCCA and The National Center For Agricultural And Forestry Technology (CENTA) is driving research efforts towards increasing cocoa productivity. 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…
USDA and MOCCA, support the WCR Verified program for large nurseries, by increasing the supply of quality planting material in 5 countries. The renewal and establishment of areas using verified seeds is expected to help reduce disease management costs and increase productivity. September 21, 2022. San Salvador, El Salvador Selecting the right variety is the…
Milagro and Elmer increased their income in 80% by improving their chocolate bar´s production management. Elmer and Milagro, or the “Martínez Domínguez family” as they are known in their community for their entrepreneurial energy and willingness to share their knowledge, have great enthusiasm in managing their cocoa plantation, becoming leading producers, artisanal processors and innovative…
We interviewed Engineer Albertino Meza Ojeda, the coordinator of the Production and Sustainability Unit of CENFROCAFE, within the MOCCA framework project, about the importance of the initiatives carried out with World Coffee Research and the impact of seed production and coffee nurseries. By Jesslin Cruz Zeledón | Country Agronomist -World Coffee Research CENFROCAFE is a…
The partnership between MOCCA and CENTA is driving research efforts towards increasing productivity. Cacao producers can access more productive high quality clones, resilient to climate change. Native, old, new and international highly valuable cocoas are being preserved in El Salvador, with funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the technical support from the…
Oscar Olindo López Castillo was born in the department of Huehuetenango, located in the northwestern region of Guatemala. He is 45 years old and lives with his wife and 4 children in a small village known as El Rincón, in the municipality of Unión Cantinil. Oscar learned the main coffee production activities from his father…
Morazán is a department located in the eastern part of El Salvador, divided into 26 municipalitieswhere mainly agricultural activities predominate, including coffee production. Sonia Ramírez, a 45-year-old woman born in Comunidad las Quebradas, municipality of San Simón, comes from a family with a long coffee-growing tradition. She began harvesting coffee more than 25 years ago,…
This initiative, which is supported by the United States Department of Agriculture, Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE), Keurig Dr. Pepper, and Neumann Kaffee Gruppe (NKG), provides financing, training, and planting materials to participants, 35% of whom are women San Pedro Sula, Honduras Coffee is the leading export crop and the source of livelihood for more than…
We traveled to Caserío La Laguna, a small village in the District of Chirinos, Peru, to meet with Carmen Águila Huamán, a woman coffee producer who joined the MOCCA & MIDAGRI training program through the Prosperidad de Chirinos Cooperative. Carmen Águila, has faced great challenges throughout her life that have defined her as the persevering…
MOCCA has been collaborating with Fundación ProPetén since 2020, supporting different processes along the cacao value chain in the Petén area of Guatemala. Lutheran World Relief also works with a network of community trainers who receive monthly training in the use of the Cacao Móvil application – www.cacaomovil.com, and technical topics related to the phenological…
Roberto Reyes, a member of the Cacahuatl de Rl producers’ organization in the community of San Pedro Nonualco, El Salvador, tells us about his beginnings in the cacao sector and rural promotion. “Currently I have a three-year-old cocoa plot of 1 mz of land established under agroforestry systems. I like to apply the knowledge I…
Ecuador is recognized worldwide for its outstanding national fine aroma cacao. Historically, it is one of the most economically and culturally important products in the country. In 2011 Olam Ecuador began marketing cacao from small farmers in 8 provinces of the country; as of 2014 they started their sustainability programs in alliance with different clients.…
The WCR Verified program is a World Coffee Research initiative in charge of certifying that coffee seed producers and nurseries are producing genetically pure, healthy plants. This certification program is designed to provide independent, science-based quality control and assurance at the beginning of the coffee supply chain. Elena Landaverde, head of the José Ángel Saavedra…
Cajamarca is a department of Peru located in the northwest of the country. It nests in the Quechua region, located on both sides of the Peruvian Andes mountain range (between 2300-3,500 m a.s.l.), and boasts a temperate climate, sunny during the day but cold at night. Clotilde Huaman Peña, a 54-year-old coffee producer, arrived in…
In Guatemala, Maximizing Opportunities in Coffee and Cacao in the Americas Program (MOCCA) works in partnership with the company Peter Schoenfeld S.A., a member of the VOLCAFE group, to strengthen the technical skills of more than two thousand coffee growers and improve their productivity and quality, thus facilitating access to planting material, financing under better…
Sensenti is a town located in the department of Ocotepeque in western Honduras, an area that produces specialty coffees with different cup profiles, characterized by their exotic fruit flavors and delicate acidity. Zoyla Maldonado and Yaneth Lemus are two women who, like many others in their locality, have followed family tradition and dedicated themselves to…
Cadmium is a heavy metal with a blue hue, closely associated with zinc. In the Andean region, Ecuador is leading the charge in the mitigation of cadmium in cacao crops due to a national multi-stakeholder research and dissemination agenda. In this field, Rikolto and MOCCA support research to ensure product access to European markets. Access…
Located seventy kilometers away from Guatemala City in the department of Chimaltenango, is the municipality of San Martín Jilotepeque, a historic place with a rich ancestral tradition and important archaeological sites, keeper of the legacy of the indigenous Mayan peoples of the highlands of the Central American country. In San Martín, more than 80% of…
Audelina Ruiz is a 51-year-old coffee grower from Cubulco, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala. She is the mother of 8 children and started in the coffee growing business with her husband approximately 5 years ago. “In the beginning we had many losses at our coffee farm, we did not know how to control the pests and we…
“Now we are better prepared to face the market,” says Abdón Heras, Chairman of Chocoben. The company is preparing its first export to Bolivia and he tells us how the program “Maximizing Opportunities in Coffee and Cacao in the Americas” (MOCCA) helped them make the leap. Chocoben is an Ecuadorian company with more than 20…
The municipality of Cubulco, Baja Verapaz, is located at the geographic center of the Republic of Guatemala, surrounded by mountains and lush vegetation and famous for its colorful traditions and folkloric dances. “Have you heard of the “Palo Volador” dance? In this dance, men hang by their feet from ropes attached to a 30-meter-high structure…”…
“At the beginning we suffered great hardship. There was no food, we couldn’t take the products to the market due to the license plate restriction imposed, we had to get up very early.” This is how Gabriela Ordoñez, producer of the Aromatic Agricultural Producers Association (ASOAROMATIC), narrates the beginning of 2020. Although it was not…
El cacao es el cultivo con más hectáreas sembradas en el Ecuador. La cadena de valor involucra a 180.000 familias, muchas de las cuáles enfrentan el reto de renovar y rehabilitar sus fincas con escasos recursos. Sin embargo, postular a un crédito no es siempre una opción atractiva, por los requisitos que existen y el tiempo que toma su aprobación…
MOCCA and the Ministry of Agriculture signed an agreement to develop a strategy with a short and long term financial focus for coffee farmers. Among other projects, the joint search for financial solutions for coffee farmers, improvements to the training mechanism for farmers; development of standards, requirements and/or certification systems for coffee nurseries; as well…
