A loan helped increase incomes for nearly 900 cacao farmers in Peru.


Cacao De Aroma's story

Rural Peruvian farmers are poor and disconnected from global markets. Private buyers take advantage of this and buy their crops at much lower prices. This is especially true of the Tocache region which once was a major shipping point for coca paste to Colombia to be refined as cocaine. To many, coca was their respite from poverty.

Cooperativa Agrária Central de Cacao de Aroma (Cacao de Aroma) was formed to break that barrier and prove that there is no need to return to the illegal cultivation of coca. The organization serves as a channel of commercialization to facilitate export, receive financing and serve as a platform that helps solve common needs of its farmer members. Cacao de Aroma centralizes the post-harvest processes of fermenting and drying the cacao, resulting in standardized and higher quality. The latter allows CdA to export Tocache’s cacao as a specialty bean and enables farmers to get prices up to 30% higher than the alternative.

Since 2014, Cacao de Aroma has managed to gather over 890 member families to sell their cacao to the coop. The first batches sold as Cacao de Aroma have allowed rural farmers to increase their income nearly 30% by the achieved price difference.

Kiva’s loan will enable CdA to purchase 80 tons of additional cacao from members. This is Cacao de Aroma’s fifth loan through the Kiva Social Enterprise program. View their previous loan here.


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