Last month, we shared key findings from an impact study conducted with four Root Capital clients, coffee cooperatives in Guatemala. Together, these cooperatives provide market access for over 800 smallholder farmers, who generally own one to four hectares of land.
Read moreTopics: Environment | Mexico and Central America |
In addition to providing us with new insights about the lives of smallholder farmers affiliated with four of our coffee clients, the data from Improving Rural Livelihoods helped us to refine our impact framework — a model that Root Capital uses to map how services provided by clients can lead to improvements in rural incomes for producer households.
Read moreTopics: Livelihoods | Mexico and Central America |
Despite the resurgence of interest and new investment in agricultural development, the supply of actionable data on the impacts of enterprises that work with smallholder farmers trails behind the demand. Our impact studies, launched in 2011 as a complement to the social and environmental metrics collected during due diligence, seek to help address the knowledge gap in the sector. In the studies, we examine the impacts that our clients, small and growing agricultural businesses, have on the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and on the environment, and we determine if and how our services increase the enterprises’ impacts. Today we’re excited to release our first multi-site impact study — Improving Rural Livelihoods: A Study of Four Guatemalan Cooperatives.
Read moreTopics: Mexico and Central America | News and Announcements | Women in Agriculture |
Jesse Last is the Cocoa Sourcing Manager at Taza Chocolate and former Value Chain Relations Manager at Root Capital. This piece originally appeared on Taza’s blog. The dirt road before us drops down from beautiful, rolling hills into the tiny beach town of Dame-Marie, disappearing into the white sand and…
Read moreTopics: Mexico and Central America | Our Community | Stories of Impact |
Members of the women-only group that produce “Café Feminino” at the Nuhaulá cooperative. In early September, we released our second issue brief, Applying a Gender Lens to Agriculture: Farmers, Leaders, and Hidden Influencers in the Rural Economy, which chronicles our experience working to empower women throughout the economic continuum. This post is the first in a series of snapshots…
Read moreTopics: Mexico and Central America | Women in Agriculture |
In 2012 and 2013, Root Capital conducted a mobile data management project with Tziscao (pseudonym to protect the confidentiality of our client), a coffee cooperative client in southern Mexico. While not designed as an impact study, the engagement with Tziscao provided us with data pointing to the cooperative’s likely impacts on its farmer members, both in terms of improved livelihoods and…
Read moreTopics: Advisory Services | Environment | Mexico and Central America |
Member of Tziscao, a coffee cooperative in southern Mexico In 2012 and 2013, Root Capital conducted a mobile data management project with Tziscao (pseudonym to protect the confidentiality of our client), a coffee cooperative client in southern Mexico. While not designed as an impact study, the engagement with Tziscao provided us with data pointing to the cooperative’s likely impacts on…
Read moreTopics: Advisory Services | Environment | Mexico and Central America |
Following the announcement of our Coffee Farmer Resilience Fund in July, many people have asked how the fund differs from our Coffee Farmer Resilience Initiative, launched last November. In short, the Coffee Farmer Resilience Fund is a component of the larger Coffee Farmer Resilience Initiative that channels private-sector funding, matched by the public sector and philanthropic sources, for targeted supply chain investments at the base of the supply chain. The diagram above is designed to illustrate the interplay between the two, and the text below explains the impetus and rationale for each.
Read moreTopics: Mexico and Central America | Partnerships | South America |
Nicolas Pineda, a coffee farmer and member of the 190-member cooperative Montaña Verde in Honduras. Note: This piece originally appeared on The Skoll World Forum website as part of a series on entrepreneurial solutions to climate change. “It feels like a scourge from God,” said Nicolas Pineda as we surveyed row upon row of diseased coffee trees on his farm in Santa Barbara, Honduras. Nicolas showed me how coffee leaf rust, a fungus known as la roya in Spanish, was destroying his 18-year-old farm, turning verdant, productive coffee plants into spindly heaps of leafless sticks. Amid the surrounding lush green hills, the juxtaposition felt cruelly ironic.
Read moreTopics: Advisory Services | Environment | Mexico and Central America |
"When we first started the cooperative, it was comprised of both men and women, but decisions were always in the hands of the men. At the time, there were women members, but they had trouble accessing training and financing. So, we changed our cooperative laws to include equality for women, to draw awareness to women’s issues through education and communication." - Denia Alexa Marín Colindres, General Coordinator, PRODECOOP, a Root Capital client in Nicaragua
Read moreTopics: Mexico and Central America | Women in Agriculture |
