PERU
Rosa Lloclla has been growing coffee for most of her life in Bajo Ihuamaca, near San Ignacio in Peru’s Cajamarca region. She began producing coffee at a young age and today farms 8.65 acres at an elevation of more than 5,000 feet. Widowed and raising three sons, Rosa has faced many of the challenges common to small-scale coffee farmers, including low coffee prices, unpredictable weather and a shortage of labor.
What keeps Rosa moving forward is her determination to create greater opportunities for her family. She and her son Nolberto continue working to improve their farm while navigating the challenges facing their community, including extreme poverty and limited access to healthcare. Rosa is especially passionate about women’s rights and her children’s education. What makes her most proud are her sons and their belief that they can overcome their circumstances and pursue opportunities she did not have herself.
HONDURAS
Ana Santos is a coffee farmer and community leader from El Pedernal in the La Paz region of Honduras. A natural leader, Ana serves in several community service organizations and has worked to make a difference both on her farm and throughout the community around her.
One of Ana’s greatest challenges has been taking on leadership roles in the traditionally male-dominated culture of rural Honduras. By stepping forward and making her voice heard, she has become an example for other women in coffee-growing communities who want an equal role in shaping their families’ and communities’ futures. Her leadership and determination reflect the people behind every cup and the important role women play throughout the coffee-growing world.
UGANDA
Wadamba and Nafuna Oliver have been growing coffee on their four-acre farm high on Mt. Elgon in Uganda since 1988. Childhood sweethearts who married young, they experienced the devastating loss of their first child early in their marriage. That experience helped shape their concern for young people in their community, where they saw girls marrying and having children before having the opportunity to complete their education.
When the nearest school proved too distant and the journey there unsafe, Wadamba and Nafuna decided to do something extraordinary: they opened a school on their own coffee farm. Today, approximately 250 students attend each day. Coffee provides the income that supports both their family and the school, and the strong up-front price they receive for coffee grown for LWR Farmers Market Coffee has helped them care for their trees and continue producing quality coffee despite challenges such as coffee tree disease. For Wadamba and Nafuna, coffee is more than a crop. It helps create opportunities for the next generation. As Wadamba puts it, “Education is light.”
HONDURAS
Fredy Rapalo is a third-generation coffee farmer in the Santa Barbara region of western Honduras, where his passion for producing exceptional coffee can be seen throughout his farm. He takes a meticulous approach to growing and processing, from maintaining old-growth shade trees to carefully pruning and fertilizing his coffee plants. Instead of relying on commercial fertilizers, Fredy combines chicken manure with coffee hulls from processing to create an organic fertilizer that returns nutrients to the soil.
Fredy’s commitment extends well beyond his own crop. A former mayor of San Luis and longtime entrepreneur, he has created businesses and jobs throughout his community. During harvest, his coffee farm employs as many as 150 to 200 workers, whom he pays above the typical local rate and provides with meals. He also operates a coffee-processing facility that smaller farmers can use to prepare their own beans. For Fredy, producing quality coffee goes hand in hand with caring for the land and creating opportunity for the people around him.
PERU
The Qori Warmi Cooperative was founded in 2017 by 31 women from the regions of Junín, Ayacucho and Cusco who came together around a shared goal: to create greater opportunity for themselves and their families. Many of the women had faced economic hardship and difficult personal circumstances. By working together, they found a way to turn the cacao grown in their region into a source of income, independence and hope.
Today, these women transform locally grown cacao into distinctive chocolates while building skills, sharing knowledge and creating opportunities within their communities. The cooperative provides more than income. It gives its members a stronger voice in decisions affecting their families and their futures. Every Qori Warmi chocolate bar represents the determination of women working together to build something better for themselves, their children and the communities they call home.