Development Grants : Guatemala

Women's Coffee Roastery APECAFORM San Marcos Guatemala

APECAFORM is a cooperative of organic coffee farmers in western Guatemala who belong to the Mam ethnic group. APECAFORM was established in 1992 with the support of the Catholic Diocese of San Marcos as part of the work of the Guatemalan Church to promote economic justice for low-income farmers. The cooperative exported its first container of Fair Trade coffee in 1997 and started an artisanal coffee roastery shortly thereafter to create income-generating opportunities for women in the community.

By roasting, grinding and packaging the coffee and selling it domestically as a finished product, the women involved in the project are able to earn more per pound than the cooperative makes through its export of "green" or unroasted coffee beans. And since the women are bringing the proceeds from these sales into their households, they have more influence over the decisions about how that money is spent—a significant empowerment process in a culture in which men generally make all household economic decisions.

But the roastery, built on a small plot of land behind the APECAFORM offices, is rudimentary at best. The coffee is roasted in batches of 50 pounds or less in a large steel cylinder suspended in a wood-burning brick oven. The process takes more than two hours and involves a whole group of women, who take turns cranking the lever that rotates the cylinder and blinking against the smoke that escapes from the roaster. Then the roasted coffee is removed, separated from the chaff and allowed to cool (30 minutes) before it is ground by hand (1-2 hours). On a recent CRS visit to the cooperative, it took the women nearly six hours to produce 18 pounds of roasted coffee. By contrast, this process would have taken less than one hour at a U.S. coffee roaster, and required no physical exertion.

In September 2005, CRS made a Fair Trade Fund Development Grant to the Women's Roastery Project for the purchase of an electric roaster and grinder, which will allow them to producer higher-quality coffee more efficiently, and a marketing consultant that will help them find more local buyers for their outstanding product.

Learn more about CRS programs in Guatemala.