Bags of Peruvian coffees awaiting transport. Daily Coffee News photo by Nick Brown.
USAID is financially backing a five-year collaborative project designed to promote the specialty coffee sector in Peru while boosting production and incomes for smallholder coffee farmers.
Referred to by USAID in different outlets either as Community of Specialty Coffees (CCE) or Specialty Coffee Communities (SCC), the project is part of USAID’s $8 million Alternative Development program.
The project, slated to run into 2026, is being promoted by Central Café & Cacao del Perú (Instagram link), which supports a nearly 20-year-old network of farmer cooperative organizations in three key Peruvian coffee regions: Cusco, Junín, and Puno.
USAID is estimating that the project will ultimately affect some 3,200 coffee-growing families by tripling annual farm income from approximately $4,800 to approximately $15,000, while increasing exports by more than 125%.
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Bethesda, Maryland-based Devworks International is an implementing partner in the project, which will include training, international internships, promotions, marketing and other market access strategies.
According to USAID, coffee-focused strategic partners in the project include green coffee traders Atlas Coffee Importers and Red Fox Coffee Merchants, the nonprofits Alliance for Coffee Excellence and Coffee Quality Institute, and global coffee competition organizer World Coffee Events.
“As a producing country we have a competitive advantage by having a rich biodiversity and different climates, characteristics necessary to obtain a coffee of excellence,” project director and Central Café & Cacao General Manager Geni Fundes Buleje said in an announcement from USAID this week. “With sustainable, efficient production, consistent quality and market access, Peru has a great opportunity to position itself as a producer of high quality coffees in the world, [and] we are sure that the CCE project will have a large contribution in achieving this objective.”
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