A loan helped to increase incomes of more than 900 farming-families in Peru and enable cacao production during COVID-19 restrictions.


Cacao De Aroma's story

Farming in the Tocache region of Peru was once dominated by the dangerous cocaine trafficking trade. To many farmers, coca production was their respite from poverty. Incentives for farming cacao started to end the cycle of coca farming, but economic growth remained stagnant due to the lack of cacao commercialization.

Cacao de Aroma (CdA) was formed to break that barrier and prove that there was no need to return to the illegal cultivation of coca. It serves as a channel of commercialization for six cacao cooperatives by providing financing, processing, and export services. CdA has scaled from commercializing 80 tons of cacao in 2014 to over 1,000 tons, and enabled 900 farmers to increase their earnings by an average of 30%.

Like many businesses around the world, CdA is unable to operate normally as a result of the crisis, which leads to extended time periods to procure, process, and export cacao. As such, CdA is requesting flexible working capital to fill their liquidity needs. This loan of $100,000 will help CdA weather this crisis and continue to pay its cacao producers and serve customers in the aftermath of the pandemic.

This is the fourth Kiva loan to Cacao de Aroma. View CdA’s last loan here.

On a recent field visit, Kiva's Media team produced this article “Breaking generational cycles: from cocaine to cacao”.


This loan is special because:

The loan is special because it empowers Peruvian farmers with better quality inputs and high market prices



Loan details


Lenders and lending teams




Loan details