Strengthen coffee cooperatives by providing access to credit and improving their marketing techniques. Reduce pollution from coffee processing by recycling water and by treating coffee pulp so that it can be used as organic fertilizer. Progress Report EnterpriseWorks helps build strategic alliances among cooperatives. The project actively encouraged cooperatives with the necessary facilities to process coffee for other groups that were either too small or lacked the resources to take on this function themselves. This collaboration increased the capacity use rate of the existing processing plants, and also enabled more farmers to increase their incomes by adding value to their raw coffee before sale.
Producer income up four-fold.
This was a four-fold increase over 1997. New equipment leads to production increases. Equipment upgrades have improved processing efficiencies, helping the cooperatives achieve substantial production increases. Producing 1 kg of green coffee now takes 5.23 kg of coffee cherries, rather than the 5.8 kg of cherries previously required in these facilities. In addition, damage to coffee beans in processing has been virtually eliminated.