Peru – Rutas del Inca

Description

The Story

A proud partnership between Cooperativa Agraria Rutas del Inca, Sustainable Harvest, and Coffeebar.

The name of this cooperative carries an interesting story. In the time of the dominance of the Incan Empire, at its height it incorporated parts of six present-day South American countries, a series of roads connected the distant regions. This network of roads was used to transport messages extremely rapidly across the country, much in the manner of the Pony Express, only using runners instead of horses. These messengers were known as chasqis, and using this network of way stations and runners messages could be transported up to 150 miles in a single day. The members of Cooperativa Agraria Rutas del Inca live along one of these historical routes. The story, as told by the head of Sustainable Harvest’s regional office in Peru (perhaps apocryphal, but who’s counting?), is that this route at the time was a very important one, because it connected the capital of the northern Incan Empire during the Incan Civil War, with a coastal town named Chiclayo. And the Emperor Atahualpa loved fresh fish. And so chasqis would be tasked with waiting at the coast for the delivery of fresh caught fish, and then transporting it rapidly up the mountain, through the present-day coffee growing region of Cajamarca. Rutas del Inca then. The routes of the Inca.

Rutas del Inca was founded in 2013 with 33 members, but has quickly scaled up to 258 members in 27 communities. The coffee is produced organically at remarkably high elevation, with some producers’ land as high as 2400 meters above sea level. The cooperative supports producing members with fertilizer and equipment loans which are paid back at the end of harvest with their coffee delivery. This structure allows producers to make investments on their farms, without requiring large amounts of capital up front.

Coffee is processed by each farmer individually, including de-pulping, washing, and drying the beans, and then collected by the cooperative for dry milling. This allows the producers to generate more value from their product, and also ensures greater traceability and the ability to continually improve quality, as farmers are offered premiums for higher quality beans.