Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/520302
42 STiR tea & coffee industry international / Issue 3, 2015 (June/July) the Rosabaya de Colombia capsule, a very successful single-ori- gin capsule," he said. Most farmers focus on the sales price as their main driver of profitability but FNC taught Colombia's growers that yield per hectare is the key driver. The price premium is the main reason farmers joined AAA but research on Real Farmer Income, a report by INCAE, the lead- ing business school in Latin America, revealed that price trans- parency and long-term commitments to farmers, technical assis- tance, investment in infrastructure and a process of continuous improvement are what leads to true value creation. The heart of the AAA program is to safeguard the future supply of quality coffee. Nespresso employs 40 agronomists in Colombia to insure the coffee grown for the program meets stringent requirements. Initially sustainability was viewed as a set of tangible goals such as improving bean quality and steward- ship of soil and water. Today long-term sustainability is mea- sured against 296 social and environmental standards. Among these benchmarks are the training and application of scientific practices that nurture plants to their full potential. Investment in labor is a priority. Medical care for workers and educating the young has advanced to the point where young people who remained on the farm now see a promising future for themselves and their offspring. But what lies ahead for their aging parents? Farmer Future Program A lifetime of growing coffee on small plots takes its toll. Suc- cessful growers raising families must invest everything they can spare in caring for their coffee, leaving little for themselves. Co- lombia's Beneficios Economicos Periodicos (BEPS) was devel- oped for workers whose income is not sufficient to contribute to a pension in their old age but with only a few years to contribute, many famers will retire with too little to survive. Recognizing the retirement dilemma, in July 2013 Nespresso proposed a project to enhance the social development of coffee farming communities by providing social security benefits. The pilot, launched in March 2014 with the cooperation of the Co- lombian Ministry of Labor and the FNC´s Caldas Coffee Grow- ers Committee, involved 700 farmers of the Aguadas Coffee Growers' Cooperative in Caldas, a Fairtrade certified supplier to Expocafé and Cafexport. The number has since grown to more than 800 farmers. In addition to their retirement savings under the Colombian government's pension program, growers who qualify for the AAA program receive an additional contribution equal to 20% of what they save annually. The greater their individual contri- butions to this public-private partnership, the faster the funds accumulate, encouraging savings and security in their later years. Nespresso estimates it will contribute $300,000 to Aguadas members this year. "The Caldas pilot has helped us to understand how best to ensure pension rights for coffee producers, and based on the experiences on that model we have recently signed a nationwide coffee grower pension initiative with Colpensiones," said Sam- per. In the future, the program may be extended to reach the more than 40,000 farmers participating in the Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality Program. Photos courtesy Nespresso AAA - Caldas by Cafeeport 2015 José Manuel Ocampo López at Finca La Cumbre, his farm in Vereda Viboral, Caldas. Colombia averaged 15.26 (60-kilo) bags per hectare in 2014. Caldas farmers averaged 16.2 bags.