Using Technology to Improve Coffee Production in the ERA of Tuluá

Since July 2018, the peasant association ASOPROVENUS, which brings together victims of the armed conflict, and COOLMUNES, a cooperative of ex-combatants in the process of reincorporation, have jointly developed various agricultural projects at the Escuela Rural Alternativa (ERA)in Tuluá, Valle del Cauca. Now they are advancing in the modernization of the coffee production process to export to Italy under the Collaborative Commercial Alliance with illy Caffè.

PASO Colombia gave the participants of the ERA a guardiola that will allow them to dry the coffee beans they produce themselves and the one they buy from coffee growers in the region. As Jorge Eliecer, a member of the COOLMUNES Cooperative, explains: "it turns out that here the harvest time is very hard during the winter, so the farmers choose to sell the wet coffee, but the idea with the new guardiola is that the farmers and us , as reincorporated, we have more profit from the drying”, in this way they guarantee a better quality of the product and a higher purchase price.

This guardiola reuses the coffee husks to produce the heat with which it dries the beans, and it has a filter so as not to emit smoke during its operation. In this way, a friendly relationship with the environment and optimization of local resources is offered. Thanks to its central location with respect to the other nodes that make up the Tuluá ERA , merchants and coffee growers can more easily transport their crops to the new dryer, reducing transportation costs by up to 90%. This also encourages other farmers in the region to sell their coffee here, where it is purchased at a more favorable price.

This guardiola is complemented by the coffee laboratory established in the same space, with which the ERA participants evaluate the quality of the coffee to ensure that it meets the quality standards required by illy Caffè and other buyers.

The Tuluá ERA is a collaborative platform promoted by PASO Colombia in which, in addition to the work of ASOPROVENUS and COOLMUNES, the efforts of the Government of the Valley , the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Association Colombian Association of Small Coffee Growers (ASCAFE), the UN Verification Mission in Colombia and the World Food Program (WFP).