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  • The country’s 34 coffee grower cooperatives, with a network of 530 purchase points, are a key marketing cogwheel of coffee institutions.
  • With a social base of 82,000 farmers, who are their owners, they organize the market and irrigate welfare in the coffee regions by implementing the purchase guarantee.


In 2014, the cooperatives of coffee growers bought 4.3 million 60-kg coffee bags, taking part actively in the domestic market and helping distribute in the coffee regions a revenue of COP $ 2 trillion ($1 billion), i.e. 37% of the nearly COP 5.4 trillion of the coffee crop value in Colombia last year.

At the same time, social investment by cooperatives in 2014 was COP 15.5 billion ($7.7 million) through different programs, including education and aids.

All this thanks to the network of 34 cooperatives whose operation has been delegated by the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC) to reach all the coffee regions through 530 purchase points.

Cooperatives thus play an instrumental role in the coffee institutions as strategic partners to apply the purchase guarantee, one of the public services most valued by growers.

The social base of cooperatives is made up of 82,000 farmers, who have been the foundation for their consolidation since 1959, when the first cooperatives were created with the FNC’s support, and which today, 56 years later, continue being a driving force for regional development of coffee communities across the country.

“Cooperatives were created to organize the market so that coffee growers could have a guarantee for the purchase of their coffee. The FNC saw that the most effective means was a coffee grower cooperative, where they are the owners and run their own business. It was an excellent idea by the FNC to support communities and organize them so that they were protagonists of their own development,” Luis B. Benjumea, National Director of Cooperatives, says.

Coffee purchased at the best possible base price

One of the main public services provided by the coffee institutions is the purchase guarantee, which through cooperatives guarantees producers the purchase of any quantity of coffee in cash and at the best possible base price, depending on international price, Colombian coffee quality premium and exchange rate.

“Cooperatives thus become regulators of prices in all coffee regions and implement the purchase guarantee, always paying coffee for the benefit of farmers and giving a lot of certainty: whenever they go from their farms to villages, they will find a purchase point willing to buy their product,” Benjumea emphasizes.

Accessible agricultural inputs and development driving force

In addition to being institutional partners that apply the purchase guarantee in the coffee regions and trying to be the best option for farmers in marketing of their coffee, cooperatives also provide a highly-valued, essential service: loans for buying agricultural inputs at their warehouses, becoming price regulators in many municipalities and allowing coffee growers to access quality products at competitive prices.

As to social investment, the Formal Education Fund was created through a cooperation agreement signed by the cooperatives, the FNC and the Icetex (Colombian Institute for Educational Credit and Technical Studies Abroad), now worth COP 7 billion.

With the resources of this Fund, 1,500 young people (the children of cooperatives partners) from the less-favored strata attend university. “We are convinced that education transforms people and the communities where they serve. With this Icetex program, implemented during the last 8 years, we got these young coffee growers formed in relevant education for the coffee regions,” Benjumea notes.

In addition, most of cooperatives in the country allocate investment to aid and wellbeing programs that directly benefit and protect partners, a relief in case of domestic and unforeseen calamities.