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. Coffee producers are now computerized. The cooperatives can now use this information to track information on members, loan recovery, and sales and deliveries by origin, type and quality.