Peru - Los Amigos

Members of Co-op Frontera, the ‘Los Amigos’ growers are living and farming in buffer zones around the Santuario Nacional Tabaconas Namballe - an important conservation area.

Through organic and sustainable practices they support the nature sanctuary and help safeguard the wildlife which includes spectacled bear, Jaguars and peccaries along with all kinds of rare flora.

Co-op Frontera provide coffee seedlings suitable for inter-cropping in the forest and also support re-forestation of the environment through the supply of specific tree species for replanting.

There are sixteen committees that form the cooperative Agraria Frontera San Ignacio. They are small coffee producers and the organization provides coffee collection and marketing services; it also provides social and micro-finance services to its partners.

Often farmers can grow great coffee, but getting the word out to importers and roasters is not an easy skill, and a cooperative with an ability to do that proves it’s worth very quickly.

Originally forming in 1968 the cooperative has a presence within the districts of La Coipa, Huarango, and Tabaconas as well as San Ignacio and have an aim to “develop a competitive sustainable agriculture with a sense of belonging and entrepreneurial capacity of its managers and workers, with national and international recognition for its trajectory and sustainable quality.”