CoopePueblos is a 50-member producer cooperative whose members are committed to sustainable farm management: conserving soils, promoting biodiversity, protecting their watershed and reducing agrochemical use.

CoopePueblos was organized in May 2005. The cooperative’s farmers produce 10,000 pounds of coffee annually and are able to sell their fine coffee more profitably using Fair Trade Direct sales assisted by the Community Agroecology Network (CAN) of Santa Cruz, California.

CoopePueblos farmers previously belonged to a larger 700-member coffee cooperative, CoopaBuena.  This larger cooperative folded in 2004 after multiple years of extremely low coffee prices on the global market.  This forced the closure of the 40 year-old CoopaBuena Coffee Mill in Agua Buena, leaving coffee farmers without a local option for processing.

Lacking the resources to purchase a new, smaller mill, the co-op turned to Dr. Karen Holl.  A Professor of Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, she is conducting a rainforest restoration project in the Agua Buena area. 

The old CoopaBuena mill and the nearby private mills are relics of a past era in coffee processing that utilized high amounts of resources in the form of water and firewood.  Modern, small-scale, ecological coffee mills employ technology that ensures responsible resource use.

Una Taza Compartida was launched to help raise the funds to purchase the new coffee mill.  The land necessary for the mill was the gift of a local businessman.  Half of the $20,000 needed was raised for the project in North America, the rest by the co-op members.  The new mill went into operation in late 2006.

Una Taza Compartida’s goal now is to promote the sales of Fair Trade Direct Coffee by CoopePueblos and other cooperatives.  It also promotes sustainable agriculture and tropical rainforest restoration and preservation.

You can support CoopePueblos by

purchasing coffee

directly from the co-op.

Click here

or on any image on this page.