by Shane Smith, Outreach Coordinator
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CECOVASA (The Organization of Agrarian Coffee
Cooperatives of the Sandia
Valleys), was founded in 1970, when a group of Peruvian coffee farmers in the
Lake Titicaca region came
together to avoid selling their beans to exploitative middlemen, and instead process
and export their beans collectively. CECOVASA
now includes eight coffee co-operative communities that are comprised of mostly
Quechuan and Aymara indigenous peoples near
the Bahuaja-Sonene
National Park and the Tambopata-Candamo
Nature Reserve. These communities are very remote, 10 to 15 hours by truck from
Juliaca, the nearest city.
On a recent trip to the CECOVASA an Equal Exchange employee
described her experience this way. “Most farmers that work the land in these remote
places live in or near their village for their entire lives. Their commitment
to the environment is not just a backdrop that can be easily altered to be more
comfortable; it is an integral part of every moment of their lives. They constantly meet the direct challenges of
this environment, whether it is landslides, poisonous snakes or precariously cut
dirt roads into the side of mountains. These everyday challenges directly
impact the things they depend on for their livelihood: growing coffee.”
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