Brazil Trip Report – August 2023

Summary

My trip to Sul de Minas in August 2023 had several objectives; to visit COOMAP, our longstanding supplier of almost five years and understand how Fairtrade premiums had been spent; to visit and meet our new supplier, COOPASV.

I was hosted by Volcafe for the first part of the trip and Sucafina for the second part, although I was based in Varginha for the whole time – a luxury to only have to unpack once!
In total, I visited four cooperatives, seven farms varying in size from smallholder to large estates, six mills and took part in six cuppings. A crucial part of the visit was to understand how the 2021 frost and droughts continued to affect the region, and what steps farmers are taking to prevent such severe impacts in the future.

(Image below – Example of the severity of localised frost damage – On the right, coffee trees killed by the 2021 frost have been stumped. On the left, healthy trees which avoided the frost continue to grow)

COOPASV

My first visit was to the cooperative COOPASV, along with the Volcafe Brazil office who have facilitated this contract. Accompanying me was Marcelo Pedroza, Commercial Director of Volcafe Brazil, Gustavo Rodrigues, Sustainability Manager (responsible for the agronomist team) and Heitor De Melo, Buying Manager for the Varginha office.

(Image below – Sadie with COOPSAV and Volcafe including Bea to my right, and Gustavo and Marcelo from far right)

When looking for a second cooperative to work with in Brazil, COOPASV were recommended to me immediately. My requirements were to look for a small, Fairtrade certified cooperative who are active in a small town and who want to form long term trading relationship with roasters. COOPASV fit the bill perfectly and did not disappoint during my visit.

COOPASV is located in the small town of Santana de Vargem, which has a population of around 7,000, and they have 73 coffee growing members. All the members of the cooperative are Fairtrade Certified, with roughly 60% of COOPASV’s total production sold as certified.

We were hosted by Bea, the cooperative manager but we also met most of the full time staff members, which included two agronomists, a Q Grader, a marketing and communications specialist plus two staff in finance and logistics. The relationship between Volcafe and COOPASV is long standing – they have worked together since 2006, not long after the cooperative was founded in 2002.

We were introduced to the cooperative’s values, which are confidence, integrity, respect, transparency and ethics. Their mission is to value the people of the country and the fruits of their hard work and to provide a cooperative which promotes technical development of certified/verified coffee. This vision was evident throughout the cooperative, with a focus on improving technical knowledge amongst their members via the agronomists, by providing soil and leaf analysis to producers in order that they may understand how best to treat their farms, and by the proprietary software, COOPASVTECH, which has mapped the polygons of each farming member.

(Image below – Sign in their reception)

In addition to their focus on technical development, COOPASV are also heavily invested in improving the lives of not just their members, but the community around them. Their Fairtrade premiums allow them to invest in social impact projects such as youth education, women’s projects (they have their own range of women’s coffee), musical education (via the Sounds of Coffee music lessons) plus health and wellbeing in the community (by investing in daycare centres and local hospitals).

They are also passionate about the environment. In 2016, they became the first small cooperative to install solar panels to make them completely self-sufficient in energy needs. They are currently working on tracking their CO2 emissions and mapping their carbon footprint.

This kind of technology is rare to find in such a small cooperative and shows the dedicated COOPASV have to ensure the future of their business in a changing legislative environment. However, it also is providing insight for the team too, as the imagery, most of which comes from drones rather than satellites, enables the technical team to assess crop growth, cherry development and harvest size, allowing them to make more calculated market decisions. They can also input data from weather stations which they have located on some farms in the region, which enable them to track rainfall patterns and cross reference weather with crop yields.

(Image below – Weather station at the highest point of Fazenda Santa Teresa, 862 masl. To the right is a small chapel dating back to 1870, which the farmers plan to restore)

COOMAP

I first visited COOMAP in 2019 and Rafael, the Export Manager has also been to visit us at Ringtons back in 2022, so we are old friends now. Sadly Rafael was not present for my visit but I was kindly hosted by Alexandra, Export Coordinator and two other team members, Joao (a technician) and Cezar (also in Export). I also spent some time cupping the new crop with fellow Q Grader Josue, who I met in 2019 too.

(Image below – Sadie with Hugo from Sucafina, left, and Josue, right)

What struck me upon visiting COOMAP was the development and investment which has continued to go into the cooperative, despite the poor years of production. Since my last visit, they now have a supermarket where members can buy products with coffee rather than cash, should they need to. They also have a new on site laboratory to carry out leaf and soil analysis (part of Joao’s role at the organisation).

COOMAP remains a family cooperative, with 76% of members owning less than 10 hectares of land and 65% of all members being family farmers. All their members continue to be located in the immediate vicinity of Paraguaca, their home town, and COOMAP are the largest company in the town, which is a responsibility they continue to take seriously, demonstrating how they support the low income town.

Fairtrade Premiums

One objective of my trip was to understand how COOMAP spend the Fairtrade premiums which we pay on out purchases. I met with the Projects Manager, Quiteria, who took me to visit one of their long-term social projects in a nursing home within Paraguaca.

COOMAP have been working with this home since 2017 when they renovated and planted a new vegetable garden. They have continued to fund the project to this day alongside paying for a full-time nutritionist to work at the nursing home. The home has 74 residents who are all from the local community and many of whom were coffee farmers or relatives of farmers.

The impact this project has had on the finances of the home has been significant. The manager told me that his fruit and vegetable bill prior to the garden was 1500 Reals per month. Now, he pays nothing, and the quality is much better. Nursing care in Brazil is poorly funded and relies heavily on donations and fundraising, so this addition has taken a significant pressure off the home.

(Image below – Vegetable plot including lettuce, kale, onions, cauliflower etc, with banana trees, citrus fruit trees in the background, plus sugar cane)

The Fairtrade premiums are also used to fund health screenings for the community, including breast cancer and prostrate cancer screenings. Additionally, COOMAP recently organised for all their coffee growing members to undergo testing for pesticide contamination in order to understand how their members were managing exposure risk. They tested all men, women and children and found the highest incidence of contamination in women. Generally, the men applied the inputs in full PPE so had minimal exposure, but women’s exposure was greater as they generally washed the clothing. COOMAP educated the families on doing this safely, plus provided healthcare support to those affected.

Another program is around youth education and training. COOMAP offer free English language courses to children and teenagers, plus a family succession plan to enable younger people to understand the opportunities that coffee farming can bring. I have volunteered to provide information or to speak at their next training so they can learn more about destination markets, roasters and how their coffee is drunk in the UK.

Farm Visit and Localised Challenges

COOMAP arranged for us to visit Sitio Laranja (the Orange Farm). The Fairtrade certified farm has been a member of COOMAP for more than 18 years and is currently in transition from the second generation to the third generation – brothers, named Mateus and Gabriel. They are in the process of completing their training as agronomists then will take over the farm full time. The family took part in COOMAPs succession planning to assist them with the transition period and both parents are incredibly proud of the young men (both only 18 and 20) who confidently led the tour round the farm and answered all our queries.

(Image below – Mateus and Gabriel, third generation coffee farmers with their parents)

Originally owning just 2 hectares, the family expanded the farm to 12 hectares a decade ago and have just purchased 26 further hectares from their neighbours. The brothers explained how, as they plan to take over the running of the farm (which is also their family home), they had to make a paradigm shift from seeing the farm as their home to their business.

These brothers are indicative of the new generation of Brazilian coffee farmers – educated, knowledgeable, financially astute and ambitious. Yet they are also sensible and are looking to create a solid, reliable business be making sound investments on their farm. These include a sophisticated irrigation system, which they have combined with six hectares of new planting of the drought resistant varietal Arara which they hope will see them reliably yield 35-40 bags per hectare.

They are also using their agronomist training to full effect – synchronising the application of inputs to weather for maximum effects and carrying our specialist pruning to stimulate tree growth. They have also attended the COOMAP trainings and work closely with the agronomists there to maximise their opportunities.
Like at COOPASV, overcoming the challenges of drought is the biggest issue here. Frost did not affect this farm so badly, but the drought caused a drop in output for 2021/22 and 2022/23. This is what has led this farm and many others, to plant Arara and to invest in expensive irrigation techniques to minimise the potential loss in future drought years.

In Brazil, finance and lending to coffee farmers is abundant and relatively easy to attain due to the strength of the industry, so Brazilian farmers do not lack liquidity or access to finance like farmers in many origins. Indeed, during lower volume years producers hold the cards – only selling to cooperatives, mills or exporters when the internal price is good enough for them, which can lead to shortages for export.

This canny approach to internal coffee sales is likely to be one reason why our Brazil containers from COOMAP were delayed in 2022/23, as producers refused to part with coffee until they felt they were gaining the best possible price. This puts pressure on cooperatives like COOMAP, who have made time bound commitments.