This post was contributed by my colleague Robyn Fieser, the Regional Information Officer for CRS in Latin America and the Caribbean. – – – – – Running a 500-acre, organic coffee farm deep in western El Salvador’s mountains has posed plenty of challenges over the years for the 89 members of Las Colinas coffee cooperative. […]
The El Pinal cooperative was established in 1980. During the first 30 years of its existence, the organization paid for its coffee to be processed at a commercial mill. This meant higher operating costs and less control over the quality of their coffee. When the CAFE Livelihoods project started in early 2009, we met with […]
The Las Cruces cooperative was established in 1980 as part of El Salvador’s land reforms. For more than 30 years, the hard-working men and women of Las Cruces produced high-quality Borbon and Pacas varietals from one of the most privileged coffee landscapes in El Salvador, nestled on the northern slope of the Ilametepec Volcano among […]
I have made no secret here of my love for Viva Espresso, an incredible café in San Salvador whose single-serve, single-origin, Cup-of-Excellence estate coffees are the best I have had anywhere in the Americas. So I was delighted to learn that Alejandro Méndez of Viva Espresso brought the World Barista Championship hardware from Bogotá home […]
Stories are swirling this year about one of the unforunate side effects of high prices — coffee is being stolen. And it is not just coffee that is getting lost at origin — lives are being lost, too. In El Salvador, theives recently stole coffee grown by a CRS partner cooperative and killed four security […]
Tomorrow I travel to Houston for the annual gathering of the SCAA. CRS has participated in some capacity in every SCAA since 2004, but this year is special. It marks our first time participating in Symposium, our first time with a booth on the show floor (#441) and the largest CRS delegation ever. With new […]
The San Antonio cooperative is located in amid the peaks of the Cordillera del Bálsamo, high in the mountains above San Salvador. For more than 30 years, it has had a tradition of producing high-quality shade-grown coffee. This year, the organization produced 12 containers of quality varietals: Borbon, Catuaí, Pacas and Pacamaras. Producing high-quality coffee […]
The members of the El Pinal cooperative have their heads in the clouds, literally. Their offices and their mill are perched on a narrow peak of the Cordillera del Bálsamo that is as often as not wrapped in mist and clouds. But the organization is seeing its future clearly and thinking in ways they haven’t […]
Santa Adelaida has been committed to principles of environmental sustainability since it began growing shade coffee in 1980. So when a local NGO suggested in 1992 that the organization’s members begin farming organically, it was a vision closely aligned with Santa Adelaida’s own. That year, its members began the transition to organic farming practices with […]
The El Salto cooperative in El Salvador is named for a dramatic waterfall – or “salto de agua” – just a short distance from its offices that sends water tumbling more than 60 meters over a sheer rock face. It is one of five waterfalls on the farm that the cooperative’s members manage collectively, so […]
