Central America and Mexico

Since making our first loan to a coffee cooperative in Guatemala in 1999, we continue to invest in small and growing agricultural enterprises across the region.

From well-established cooperatives to early-stage businesses looking to grow, the region is full of enterprises poised to drive impact for smallholder farmers. This support is increasingly urgent, as the region battles natural disasters and other impacts of climate change. With offices in Costa Rica, Mexico, and Nicaragua, we use innovative funding mechanisms to unlock the impact potential of coffee, cocoa, and honey enterprises.


In this region we currently work in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua.

Stories of Impact


Coffee: The Canary in the Coalmine for Climate Change

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.

Through the Lens: Women in Agriculture

"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 

Women in Agriculture Series: The Changing Role of Women in Coffee – Part 2

Wesley Weissberg (left) interviewed women leaders and producers working in the coffee industry while in Guatemala. Last October, we shared the first audio story in a two part series produced Wesley Weissberg, a longtime supporter of Root Capital and advocate of our Women in Agriculture Initiative.

Just a Little Bit Bigger

Morning coffee in northern Nicaragua with Fatima Ismael, the amazing manager of SOPPEXCCA I’ve just returned from a trip to northern Nicaragua, where we were visiting SOPPEXCCA, a 750-strong farmer coffee cooperative managed by an extraordinary leader, Fatima Ismael. Fatima and I have worked together for a decade, and I always look forward to talking to…

Celebrating The Coffee Exchange’s 30-Year Commitment to Farm Families

Charlie Fishbein, owner of Coffee Exchange café in Providence, Rhode Island. Growing rural prosperity for the world’s poorest farmers requires collaboration across entire value chains, from the small businesses who make up our clients, to the traders, brands and retailers who purchase their products, to the consumers who value sustainably-produced goods.  At Root Capital, we don’t often celebrate consumers,…

View from the Field: New Cluster Study Measures Our Impact on Guatemala Coffee Clients

Q&A WITH ASYA TROYCHANSKY, ROOT'S IMPACT ASSESSMENT OFFICER. Asya Troychansky, Root Capital’s Impact Assessment Officer, recently returned from Guatemala where she has been overseeing Root Capital’s Cluster Study.