Sponsor a Solar Drying Tent for COOPAFSI Peru

As many of you know, Royal New York and the Peruvian cooperative “COOPAFSI” have been developing a mutually beneficial partnership over the past 4 crop years. To be more specific, our focus has been working with the all-female sub-group of COOPAFSI called “Las Damas de San Ignacio”. This relationship has gained traction and support from roaster clients in the recent past because of their commitment to quality, multiple certifications and a positive message that pours through every cup they produce. The Las Damas group has provided several opportunities for the women in this community. They are board members, accountants, q-graders, and community leaders - all while being mothers, wives and hardworking coffee producers.  

Recently we visited their San Ignacio home and met with several producers/cooperative board members who shared a concern regarding improper drying of their post-harvest parchment. As some of you know, Northern Peru is hot and wet spurring unexpected rain showers any day or time. This presents a challenge for producing quality…especially with limited infrastructure for drying green coffee. In order to produce high quality specialty coffee, you need to ensure that drying is done uniformly and in a timely manner. Many lose beans due to mold or other drying related issues, some have to constantly run out in the rain to cover their beans which leads to lengthy drying times, causing many delays in their harvest and coffee deliveries. 

In response to this issue we’ve partnered with COOPAFSI to provide a fairly simple but costly solution – Drying Tents or Solar dryers as they are commonly called. To start, we are launching this program with the goal of providing a drying tent for 50 women from the "Las Damas de San Ignacio" group.  Each tent will cost them about $290. All funds raised will go directly to the cooperative to launch this program in time for the 2020 harvest. 
In addition, these solar drying tents would allow these women to produce more coffee and sell it at a higher premium which can contribute to other projects they are working on such as communal kitchens and better access to healthcare.  Eventually we would like to provide every producer (or family) with a solar drying tent but for now we think this is a great start! Thanks in advance for supporting our mission.








Some background information on COOPAFSI & Las Damas: 

- COOPAFSI (Cooperative Agraria “Frontera San Ignacio” Ltda) was officially established in June 1969.

- They are located in San Ignacio, Cajamarca which is at most Northern point of Peru.

- They provide Organic, Fair Trade and Rainforest certified coffees such as "Las Damas de San Ignacio", along with micro lots and lots from different families throughout San Ignacio as well. 

- They focus on gender equality 

- The "Las Damas de San Ignacio" group started in 2016 and it consists of about 90-100 women within the cooperative who focus on high quality specialty coffee. In 2016, they created their own committee of women in order to distribute loans, manage new projects (such as community kitchens, computer labs, education and health). 

- These women also have a sewing/knitting club in order to create articles of clothing, blankets and much more to provide an additional form of income 

For More Information about their coffee please click here 





How you can donate:

- You can donate any amount and provide your info (or remain anonymous)

- You can donate the amount for one solar drying tent ($290) and provide your contact information to receive email updates on the producer/tent you have sponsored!

- Volunteer work: if you'd like to visit the cooperative and volunteer your time please email [email redacted] . Volunteer work would be anytime between December - March when the cooperative will be building the drying tents. 



The deadline to donate has been extended until we get closer to our goal!