Bolivia Villa Rosario

Agricafe is owned by the Rodriguez family (our partner there since 2016) who started this business in 1986. At that time, the family used to rent wet mills in Caranavi region, buying cherries from 2,000 producers and in 2001 they built their current wet mill, called Buena Vista, in Caranavi. Very quickly a dry mill in la Paz was built and the family started exporting operations. In 2012, a few years after the national drop of production, they decided to buy land and start farming as well. They now have 8 farms in Caranavi region (60 ha) and 5 farms in Samaipata region (60 ha). This year, they have lost 2ha of farm in Samaipata because of heavy rains leading to landslides. Up to 300 people are working for the company at the peak season. They also hire agronomists from different countries as consultants every year. They produce coffee, process it at the wet mill then dry mill and export it themselves directly to us. They bet on a great vertical integration system to shorten the supply chain and make it more transparent and cost efficient. In 2019, the won the SCA Sustainability award in the category ‘Best Sustainable Business Model’.

Aside from experimenting a lot on the processing, the family is also investing a lot in agronomy research doing some trials with grafting and using different varieties (over 50). After a few years now they realised that the best results in the cup/field were given by Java and Geisha grafted on Robusta root systems. They are therefore already renovating some of their parcels with these plants.