At a Glance
Location: Junin, Peru
Impact Areas: Training, Sustainable Income, Environment, Technology
People Supported:
Farmers, Rural
Joined NESsT Portfolio:
2020
Overview
A strong advocate of rainforest preservation, CAECOS is a cooperative that ensures sustainable, environmentally-friendly coffee management and promotes organic and shade-grown coffee.
The cooperative is made up of over 370 smallholder farmers from Junin who export organic, free-trade coffee to Europe. Founded in 2009 by 30 members, CAECOS has grown its membership nearly 12x in the past decade by providing smallholder farmers living in the central jungle of the Peruvian Amazon with an average income that is 31% higher than the income earned by other farmers in the region.
The enterprise provides its members, 24% of whom are women, access to technical assistance in sustainable farming practices so that they can deliver higher quality coffee while also preserving the land for future coffee seasons.
This continuous support helps the coffee farmers to address the problems that many of them face related to plagues, droughts, and pricing negotiation. By increasing their livelihoods and overcoming these obstacles, the farmers stay on their land, avoiding migration to the city and a potential life of poverty struggling to make a living.
Results & Impact to date
31%
higher income than farmers who are not members of CAECOS
24%
of members and farmers are women
500
hectares of degraded land to be reforested in five years
“Without NESsT, it would have been very complicated to reach our goals considering the crisis and our liquidity levels prior to receiving the loan. The NESsT loan is allowing us to accelerate our exports and continue to support our ‘asociados.’ Among the farmers and suppliers are single mothers who are working hard to bolster their income to support their families and communities. Coffee sales drive this economic support.
”
The NESsT Fund was eager to invest in CAECOS in order to ensure that the enterprise could sustain the income of 100 smallholder farmers and remain on track to reforest 500 hectares in the next 5 years. We were impressed by CAECOS’ relationship with its clients and recognized the importance of this moment as the company finds itself unable to meet the demand of its commercial clients but capable of increasing production.
The next phase of the company is to onboard 80 newly trained organic farmers and scale its fulfillment and client operations. Throughout its time in the portfolio, NESsT will provide CAECOS with business services that will help the enterprise to improve its impact and business management process so that it can continue to grow.