Coffee is the main export crop of Guatemala, and around 130,000 people in Guatemala make their living by planting coffee. Since 2015, the International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF) has assisted Mayan indigenous people and women living near volcanoes in Guatemala to improve their coffee planting technology. In order to expand the scope of foreign aid and invite society to participate, the TaiwanICDF launched the “Where there is coffee, there is me” Café 3 Volcanes crowdfunding program on November 2, 2020. Using the Zec Zec platform (https://www.zeczec.com/projects/cafe-volcanes), the program brings Guatemalan coffee, full of Taiwanese warmth and friendliness, to the people of Taiwan.

The fertile volcanic soil in Guatemala produces Arabica coffee beans full of bold aroma and moderate acidity. Coffee is not only an important economic lifeline for small farmers, it also promotes the development of local rural areas and becomes an important industry for their livelihood. The TaiwanICDF assists small farmers in Guatemala to improve the quality of coffee beans and establish marketing concepts. However, high-quality coffee beans still face intense market competition. In order to help small farmers increase their competitiveness in the industry value chain, the TaiwanICDF has cooperated with Just Go Coffee and Impact Hub Taipei to connect Guatemala’s coffee with Taiwan’s market to enhance the sustainability of the coffee industry in Guatemala.

Through trilateral cooperation, the crowdfunding program shows the importance of Public-Private-People Partnerships while highlighting each partner's respective fields of expertise. As Taiwan’s professional foreign aid agency, the TaiwanICDF is dedicated to assisting local farmers enhance planting techniques and lay the foundation for the coffee industry. The founder of Just Go Coffee, Lulu Wang, is a well-known master coffee roaster in Taiwan. She won second place in the 2011 Roasters Choice Competition held by the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), ranking first in Asia. In order to ensure the quality of the coffee, she will personally roast the volcanic coffee for the program. The medium and dark roasted coffee beans will have a brown sugar and pomelo aroma with a rich flavor from being grown in volcanic soil, allowing Taiwanese consumers to taste the unique Latin American volcanic coffee. In promoting this program from a sustainable development perspective, Impact Hub Taipei proposes ideas and program content that match consumer expectations and reaches like-minded people, emphasizing the value of this program on foreign aid.

This crowdfunding program sets target amounts at different stages. When target amounts are met, professional coffee equipment will be provided according to local small farmers' needs to enhance the quality of coffee beans. In addition, technical training will help improve the local coffee production process to increase both the coffee production value as well as economic returns of small farmers. Overall, this program has benefited more than 1,000 rural households and 4,500 people in Guatemala, and allowed the people in Taiwan to taste the warmth and friendliness of the cooperation between Taiwan and Guatemala.

相關照片

第1張圖片

• 更新日期: 2020/11/27
• 點閱次數:476