Más Café & Community Development

The Mexican government provides grants to local institutions in the poorest regions of Southern Mexico to promote community development. Más Café is one of the first producer organisations to ever receive this grant, and they plan to invest the grant in training, infrastructure and diversification projects to boost the local economy and widen its impact in the communities.

Delmar Lopez, Más Café’s General Manager (pictured right) explains:
“Every diversification project will follow a similar approach, as our experience in coffee is to always combine the strengthening of production with marketing. We will train people in improved production techniques for organic honey, forestry and handicrafts, while at the same time exploring market (sales) opportunities. We will also look to build economies of scale and broaden our impact including more villages in the programme."

"We would never have reached this level of professionalism without the consistent support of Cafédirect’s Producer Partnership Programme. Many other organisations who want to support us usually want to invest in a project that has a tangible result such as a school. But Cafédirect have helped us build up a team of well trained professionals in such a way that we now can train others and manage development ourselves. Actually this kind of support is much more important, because without a school you can still teach, but without a teacher your school will not help you at all.”

The grant is initially given for one year, and the Mexican government have committed to providing support for a further six years. Más Café plan to work with different communities each year. “In the first year we're working with two organisations in the highlands of Chiapas that produce coffee for Cafédirect’s organic mountain gourmet Palenque. They represent 234 indigenous families in 30 different communities. The aim is that through involving these families, they are able to generate development for the entire community.” Julio Alfaro, Más Café Project Manager said.

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