The Co-operative Coffee Growers of Honduras, La Central,
is a national federation comprising 60 local coffee-growing
co-operatives. La Central buys coffee from local co-operatives
at a fair price, and sells it on to exporters. Coffee is an annual erop.
In the past, farmers had to invest heavily throughout the planting
season but they would receive a one-time payment for their erop
from exploitative middlemen. They had no option but to sell at
the offered price, because they were desperate for income. The
establishment of the national federation and support from the
Rabobank Foundation has broken that pattern. The main danger
in this kind of structure is that growers can become dependent
on coffee. So, with the Foundation's help, the national federation
has set up credit and savings facilities so that coffee growers can
spread their income over the year. To mitigate the risk of poor
harvests, the national federation has established an emergency
fund for bad erop years. It also provides loans to growers so they
can experiment with diversifying their crops thereby decreasing
their dependency on world market prices.
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