Nicaraguan Coffee Odyssey – Lend To Growers Now!
April 13, 2011By: karenhansengray
The coffee harvest takes place from December to February each year, but the coffee growers are applying for Kiva loans now, to cover the cost of fertilizer, salaries for workers, and other supplies.
As a Kiva Fellow with MiCredito in Esteli, Nicaragua, I decided to learn as much as I could about coffee. To do that, I followed three different paths:
- One was to visit Leonardo, a coffee grower, who lives up in the mountains near Yali.
- The other was to take a tour of PRODECOOP, a cooperative of 2,000 coffee growing families, in the town of Palacaguina.
- And lastly, I attended a Coffee Fair in Ocotal, the last town before the Honduran border.
Facts:
Sales of Nicaraguan coffee beans to the U.S., Europe and Venezuela generated $154 million dollars in the first five months of 2010-2011 (October – February). That is double last year’s earnings. Nicaragua exported 753 mil quintales (quintal = 100 lbs) of cafe. The average price received for a quintal of coffee was $204 dollars, or $2 a pound.
Lend Now to Nicaraguan Coffee Growers!
Here is a list of Kiva MiCredito borrowers who are coffee growers.
Danilo, Manuel, Salomon, Jesus, Maryuri, Jose
If these loans are already funded, keep checking back, Cindy at MiCredito will be uploading more. You can find them here.
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