As a buyer, you are working in the coffee and/or cocoa value chain.
1 COLLABORATION OPTIONS
There are different options to collaborate with Progreso.
Project investment
You can collaborate with Progreso by supporting, either in-kind or in cash, a specific project. By working with us, you will support the capacity of a producer organization to enhance their coffee and cocoa production both in quality and volume and this way contribute to a fair and secure income for small farm households. We focus on sustainable business development of the producer organization by taking into account access to finance, capacity building, access to markets, diversification, and environmental preservation and renovation.
Financial assistance
You can collaborate with Progreso in terms of setting up a rotating fund, or input finance, within a producer organization. Through collaborating with Progreso, you help support producer organizations in the development and implementation of input finance funds, or as we call them; rotating funds.
These rotating funds allow producer organizations to provide the needed input finance to their members which banks are unable to fulfill. This then can be used to give farmers, on an individual basis, access to farm inputs, renovation and rehabilitation capital, or other ‘high risk’ loans. We also train producer organizations on how to provide sustainable credits to their members and manage this loan portfolio.
Producer visibility and direct field updates
Progreso can help you get more insights into who the producers of your product are by:
- Monitoring the development of the smallholder farm households and the producer organizations in the long-term. By accessing our online monitoring and evaluation system you can see the results of the yearly conducted organizational assessments of the producer organizations, as well as the results of the close monitoring of the development in livelihoods of the smallholder farm households.
- Provide you with a short-term, unique and detailed report on a specific producer organization and its members, giving you a better understanding of who the members are, what the producer organization looks like and generally, better understanding the products you buy.
- Conduct living income studies. A living income is the income of a farm household that is needed to cover the costs of a ‘decent standard of living’ and includes food, housing, education, health care and other basic needs, plus the investments in the farm and a buffer to cover the costs during unexpected events. This helps in determining a fair wage and/or price for the coffee or cocoa
Consultancy assignments
We also work on consultancy basis, providing the following services upon your request:
- Organizational assessment, through using our assessment tool MIDCA
- Improve quality through capacity building and/or setting up facilities
- Financial literacy training
- Price risk management training
- Capacity building focused at good farming practices and environmental resilience to enable long-term produce
- Analyze best market options
- Setup certification systems
Why should you consult with us? Because of our holistic approach and experience working with many producer organizations, you will not only get done what is requested, we will also share with you our thoughts about the organizations’ capacity on finance, markets, organizational development, business sustainability and environmental resilience. Besides this, we will compare the specific producer organization of interest with a similar producer organization.
2 PRODUCT ACCESS
We have a large number of reliable producer organizations within our network that we can connect you with. Please let us know what kind of coffee or cocoa you are looking for, and we can advise you on possible fitting relationships related to origin, quality and volume and, upon request, provide you with samples.
3 JOIN BEYCO BY PROGRESO, THE GLOBAL COFFEE CONNECTION & TRADING PLATFORM
Our global coffee platform, Beyco, will facilitate you in finding the coffee you are looking for. Please make a profile on www.beyco.nl and search by coffee quality/country/export month or go straight to the profile of the producer organizations of your interest.
4 PROJECT CASES
Click here to read more about our projects.