Kiva conducts regular, ongoing monitoring of all Lending Partners, but only posts status updates here in response to relevant, major changes at the partner.

Status update- March 3, 2023

Unfortunately, Peru farmers continued to be affected by the Pandemic and the ongoing political crisis and refused to repay their loans. The latter greatly impacted CAPTN, which was unable to recover. CAPTN tried tirelessly to collect as many payments as possible, but they could only recover US$ 28K of the amount outstanding. After a year of non-repayment to Kiva, we decided to write off the remaining amount (US$96K) and close the account.

Status update- March 3, 2022

Kiva has decided to pause CAPTN's access to fundraising loans on the Kiva platform as CAPTN faces severe operational and financial issues that threaten the organization's sustainability. CAPTN has failed to meet its payment obligations to Kiva lenders since November 2021 and currently has about $101,838 in outstanding debt that is now considered delinquent. Kiva will continue to pursue recovery of all outstanding funds and pass those funds on to lenders if and as they're received. We will provide additional information to lenders as it becomes available.

Partner description:

The Cooperativa Agraria de Productores de Tara del Norte (CAPTN) was founded in 2003 and has since grown its network of small-scale farms into one of the largest producers of tara in all of Peru.

Tara is a small tree native to Peru that provides an excellent source of environmentally-friendly tannins used to manufacture automotive and furniture leathers.

CAPTN provides comprehensive supply chain services to its farming members, including transport, collection, quality control, storage and commercialization of tara. CAPTN also provides organic certification to its farmers, helping them fetch a higher price for their products. In addition, CAPTN concentrates on maintaining native biodiversity and environmental sustainability by providing technical assistance on sustainable harvesting techniques, and organic insecticides and fertilizers.

A unique lending approach:

CAPTN serves small-scale tara farmers who have little access to financial services and are generally unable to command high market prices for their crops on their own. Kiva loans are used to finance the purchase of organic fertilizer and insecticides, as well as allow farmers to diversify their crops by adding aguaymanto, potatoes, cereal and/or corn to their land.

CAPTN supports these high-value crops, because they're committed to helping their members break the cycle of poverty with financially and environmentally sustainable farming options.