Prodecoop

COOPERATIVE OF COFFEE PRODUCING FARMERS IN NICARAGUA

Nicaragua
has the perfect climate for growing coffee. But the chain from growing to selling is long. For small-scale farmers, this road is both too long and too complex. Hivos partner Promotora de Desarrollo Cooperativo de las Segovias (PRODECOOP) opens this road to farmers so that they can escape poverty.

‘We coach small farmers with collecting coffee beans, industrially processing these beans into the coffee product and trading this product,’ says Reynaldo Vásquez, the president of PRODECOOP. ‘But we do more. We also offer technical assistance and credit for the maintenance and renovation of their plots of land. Our goal is for them to eventually be able to maintain their coffee production themselves, and further that they not only take the environment into consideration but also meet high standards of quality. This way they will remain attractive to the international market.’

Because of this goal, and the effective implementation of it, Hivos has been supporting PRODECOOP since 1995. After all, Hivos also has the goal of teaching poor people to provide in their own livelihood – and to do this in a sustainable manner. To date, forty small cooperations in Nicaragua with a total of nearly two thousands farmers have joined PRODECOOP. Including the farmers’ family members, the organization now directly supports more than 10,000 people.

‘The indirect number is even bigger,’ says Vásquez. ‘More than a hundred communities in the central-northern part of Nicaragua currently benefit from the economic impact of our work. When trade flourishes in an area, as it does partly thanks to us in the departments of Estelí, Madriz and Nueva Segovia, more money comes into the area and more jobs are created. Especially in the United States the demand for sustainable coffee is growing, but we also export to Europe, Italy in particular. There you may come across the brand that we successfully launched in the international market: “Sabor a Segovia” (“The flavour of Segovia”)!’

Take a look at the clip of Alexa Marin. She works for Prodecoop.

Type of organisation

Community based organization

Sector

Sustainable Production

Country

Nicaragua

Founded

1993

Hivos partner since

1995

Website

www.prodecoop.com

More information

» | About this partner (in English)

» | About this partner's projects (in English)

CONTACT

Prodecoop

» | +505 713 3236

» | http://www.prodecoop.com/

LINKS

» | http://www.prodecoop.com

Fortalecimiento Productivo y Organizativo de PRODECOOP
DAC-sectors	Business and trade Crop production
Location	Estelí, Nicaragua
Beneficiary	small entrepreneurs: small business, trade, crafts, services
activity	Fortalecimiento de la base productiva, economica y socio-ambiental
Direct outreach	1856 - Beneficiaries: poor and/or marginalised women and men
Indirect outreach	5000 - Intermediary level
activity	Competitividad en la produccion y comercializacion
Direct outreach	1856 - Beneficiaries: poor and/or marginalised women and men
Indirect outreach	5000 - Intermediary level
activity	Tecnologias agroecologicas y sostenibilidad ambiental
Direct outreach	1856 - Beneficiaries: poor and/or marginalised women and men
Indirect outreach	5000 - Intermediary level
activity	Fortalecimiento base organizativa y sostenibilidad social
Direct outreach	1856 - Beneficiaries: poor and/or marginalised women and men
Indirect outreach	5000 - Intermediary level
Contract total	1.797.761
Contractperiod	15-07-2004 until 14-07-2008

Description

NI01513 PRODECOOP's
Productive and Organizational Strengthening

PRODECOOP's project approved by the European Union, where HIVOS is the leading agency and Agro Acción Alemana plays an important role in the follow-up, pretends to strengthen sustainable human development for 1856 peasant coffee growing families, who are the most deprived and marginalized. It considers that these families have important material and human resources, but require financial resources and technical advice to improve the quality of life. The project presents four basic results: Result 1: Coffee growing families gathered around PRODECOOP have strengthened their productive, economic and social-environmental basis. Result 2: Coffee growing families involved have improved efficiency and competitiveness of their production, treatment and marketing processes. Result 3: The involved coffee growing families implement agro-ecological technologies, allowing greater environmental sustainability in their productive activities. Result 4: The involved cooperatives have a stronger, more equitable and solid organizational base, allowing greater social sustainability for their operations.

The execution of the project will be organized according to territories. The technical aspect will be managed by a professional multi-disciplinary team, made up of seven persons, that will work in the seven specific areas where the base cooperatives are located. Its main functions will be: training, assessment and technical assistance; coordination of the planning, execution and follow-up processes of the project's activities. The monitoring plan contemplates the formulation of annual operative plans which will be evaluated each year and the designing of monitoring systems and instruments, as well as a data base allowing the construction of indicators and the follow-up of indicators.

Prodecoop is a solid counterpart for Hivos' Sustainable Economic Policy, oriented towards the promotion of profitable productive activities with small men and women producers, with a focus on environmental sustainability and gender equality.

Mejoramiento de Medios de Vida de Asociados (as) a Cooperativas de Base de PRODECOOP R.l
DAC-sectors	Crop production
Location	Estelí, Nicaragua
Beneficiary	small farmers, fishers, pastoralists, forest dwellers
activity	Fortalecimiento del movimiento cooperativo
Direct outreach	30 - Policy level/ institutional
Indirect outreach	1500 - Beneficiaries: poor and/or marginalised women and men
activity	Asistencia técnica y producción de insumos
Direct outreach	1000 - Beneficiaries: poor and/or marginalised women and men
Indirect outreach	5000 - Beneficiaries: poor and/or marginalised women and men
activity	Fondo de crédito revolutivo para mujeres socias
Direct outreach	150 - Beneficiaries: poor and/or marginalised women and men
Indirect outreach	500 - Beneficiaries: poor and/or marginalised women and men
Contract total	309.000
Contractperiod	01-12-2008 until 31-12-2011

Description

NI015S15 - Livelihood Enhancement Partners to Cooperative Base PRODECOOP R.L.

The Nicaraguan Prodecoop project that is presenting to Hivos, aims to address the most urgent problems that this Central Coffee Cooperative faces: to strengthen their basis cooperatives, to increase production (renewal of coffee plantations, inputs supply system, technical assistance), to improve product quality and to strength women's position in the Prodecoop structure.

Hivos will support some components of the project to be more strategic: cooperative better acceptance to women's and young people participation (not just the owner of the land), cooperative education to children of school age (through teachers training), production of inputs for organic production, technical support to producers from previous projects (renovation and wet mills), improvements in the quality control laboratory and assembly of a revolving credit system for women small projects. All these are important components in a strategy of social and economic sustainability, and can be made by Prodecoop, later without Hivos support. Prodecoop is an important Hivos partner, not only because it contains key elements of its policy (access to quality markets), but because of the importance and influence of Prodecoop in the cooperative movement in Nicaragua and in the Trade Fair space, through the Latin America Fair Trade Coordinator, CLAC by its acronym in Spanish.