RECOCARNO was established in 1998 with the aim of becoming the first farmer-owned exporter of quality coffee in Haiti. RECOCARNO’s members farms are based across the north of the country.
Before RECOCARNO was formed the farmer cooperatives were largely isolated from each other and lacked the organisation and infrastructure to change business practices that were hampering their long-term interests, and ensure they got the best prices for their coffee.
Farmers were forced to sell their coffee to local intermediary traders for very low prices. This provided little incentive to improve or even preserve the crop, and coffee trees were sometimes cut down to make way for other crops such as yams.
However, since establishing RECOCARNO, all this has changed: good quality coffee is now grown and the returns have helped to create a structure where training, information-sharing, quality control, and infrastructure improvement have become possible.
All members of the co-operatives have a real motivation to work for continued change, and receive meaningful rewards for their efforts. It has not always been easy though, with members having to constantly overcome challenges such as poor local infrastructure which makes transporting coffee difficult, or fighting the effects of bad weather conditions or the growing effects of climate change.