Steps towards equity: our new selection of women producers
The Women Coffee Producers (WCP) program was created to raise awareness within the coffee industry about gender inequality in coffee-producing countries and to provide financial support to women farmers through our sourcing and sales efforts. Through this initiative, we source coffee from women's associations and cooperatives, paying them a gender equity premium in addition to the initial price of their coffee, which is based on quality.
We are well aware that gender inequality exists in most (probably all) industries worldwide, but our interests and activities are focused on coffee. By sourcing coffee grown by women producers, we empower them to become financially independent within their families, communities, and the industry. We hope to contribute to the best of our ability and make progress in increasing the visibility of women throughout the supply chain, as well as helping to safeguard the sustainability of their vital contributions.
In recent years, we have seen increased interest in programs with specific origins and mixed cooperatives that want their women producer members to create their own products through batch separation. Our importer has met with a growing number of all-female groups whose visions align perfectly with WCP certification.
“All over the world, I’ve seen many companies promoting women’s projects,” says Luis Arocha, green coffee buyer at Cafe Import. “People are curious about how they can be involved at the source. There’s a great willingness to support projects like this one.”
The Women Coffee Producers program is the brainchild of Mr. Piero Cristiani. It was after meeting the CODECH group in Guatemala that he noticed a growing interest in this type of work on gender equality at all levels.
We are therefore very proud to present, with the support of Café Imports, ASMUCAFE coffee. The group describes itself as Asociación de Mujeres Agropecuarias de Uribe (Association of Agricultural Women of Uribe ), an organization of farmers and landowners from El Tambo, a municipality in Cauca. The women's mission as an association is to improve the quality of life for their families through coffee cultivation and to contribute positively to their community by working together and sharing resources, knowledge, and a support network.
The coffee, which is entirely of the Castillo or Colombia variety, is picked as a purple cherry (Castillo) or a bright red one (Colombia), and undergoes a somewhat unusual "double" fermentation process: the cherries are first left in the loading hoppers for 14 hours, then they are pulped in the afternoon and evening and placed in traditional open fermentation tanks for 10 hours. Afterward, they are washed three to four times before being dried in parabolic dryers or in the sun for 8 to 12 days.
