Cooperativa Agraria Cafetalera Pangoa is a cooperative representing coffee farmers in San Martin de Pangoa, just east of the Andean mountain range in Central Peru. Pangoa supports its members beyond the purchasing and selling of their coffee. They promote economic diversification through cacao production in lower elevations, honey production, and developing local markets for roasted coffee sales. CAC Pangoa was founded in 1977 by 50 farmers and has since grown its membership into the thousands.
Pangoa has 44 members participating in The Cool Farm Tool Pilot Project.
Founded 1977
703 Members, 470 Organic
1000-2050 m
Pangoa, Peru
2200 Organic ha
Avg Farm Size 6.15 ha
May-September
Varieties
Catimor
Other
Fair Trade
Organic
Washed
Earthy, raisin, tobacco,
cocoa, and almond flavours
Pangoa farmer members have worked for decades on reforestation and conservation to counter external pressures driving deforestation. This study only included the coffee farming areas. While Pangoa registered the largest average farm size in the pilot, our study did not account for approximately 4x the area that the organization oversees for conservation of primary forests and reforestation. Approximately a quarter of CAC Pangoa members are women, but only 12% of sampled farmers were women.
The case of Pangoa motivated Cooperative Coffees to examine assumptions behind carbon accounting and their value as a reflection of farmer performance. When designing incentives and compensation, we decided to exclude all forms of land use change
The district of Junin where Pangoa is located is in direct line from Lima. The pressure for urbanization is intense. The area remains a hotspot of illicit crop production and organized crime as well as illegal logging. Add EUDR to a market that does not recognize accumulated value from long-term sustainable land management. Lack of legal land tenure. Pangoa is the starkest example of drivers of deforestation being outside farmer control. To claim results reflect farmer efforts, and to compensate them accordingly, would be incredibly unfair.
Low elevation members producing coffee and cacao are particularly at risk from external market pressures to transition crops from organic certified agroforestry to full-sun, non-commodity crops like pineapple and ginger. In order to add value to the product and support livelihoods from sound environmental practices in coffee, Pangoa has established a rotary fund to work with 41 female and 69 male farmer members on natural coffee selection and fermentation for added value, covering a total of 989 hectares of coffee and cacao production.
