Colombia, the coffee country par excellence, continues to strengthen its presence internationally. One of the most recent milestones was the result of the work of two coffee farmers from Quindío: Lina Granados Uribe and Ana María Donneys Correal. Thanks to them, the country is now part of the International Women Coffee Alliance (IWCA) and, for the first time, joins the organization’s global network to empower women who grow coffee, as well as to recognize their work and participation in the development of this industry.
The two women producers of the grain managed to create the Colombian Chapter of IWCA, an initiative that will allow the integration of the country in the coffee value chain, among 28 consuming and producing countries of the grain.
This alliance, without a doubt, is an important achievement of these young Quindian women who stand out for their leadership, dedication and knowledge of coffee growing. This is demonstrated by the results: they have managed to bring together more than 60 women coffee growers in the coffee region (Quindío, Risaralda and Caldas) and more than 40 in Antioquia.
Their projection is that in the next five years they will be able to associate more women from other coffee-growing areas of the country such as Huila, Tolima, Cauca, Magdalena and Santander. In this sense, they have focused their work and efforts on opening doors internationally to generate business opportunities, foreign investment, as well as training spaces to strengthen Colombian women coffee growers.
more than a million women
According to Fedecafé, in the country there are more than 550,000 families that grow coffee and more than a million women that are part of the value chain, such as baristas, roasters, marketers, and academics.
In this regard, Lina Granados mentions that “being a coffee farmer fills many women with pride, but at the same time commits us to continue working for those new generations in the field who want to continue the tradition. The IWCA has developed projects in Jamaica, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Rwanda, and Ethiopia, among others, with very promising results for the work of women coffee farmers. We hope to bring and replicate many of the good practices in Colombia”.
The International Alliance of Women Coffee Growers also leads the empowerment of women’s work in the international coffee industry by supporting a global network of independent, self-organized and autonomous organizations. Colombia has been growing coffee for more than two centuries, managing to transform this practice into a tradition of the Colombian countryside and cultural heritage of humanity, according to Unesco. In this sense, it is essential to continue positioning and adhering to the country in relevant initiatives such as the IWCA.
“The work of Colombian women coffee growers is worth noting, especially that of Lina Granados Uribe and Ana María Donneys, since bringing an organization like the IWCA to Colombia opens up opportunities for them, promotes equality and makes the next generations of women find in the union of its sector, a special strength for coffee to continue being a benchmark worldwide. From Yara we will continue to support them in the visibility they need to reach more women every day,” said Ximena Muñoz, area manager and leader of the Women in Agronomy Program at Yara Colombia, a fertilizer and plant nutrition company that provides agricultural products and solutions for the industry.
Precisely in August of last year, a World Meeting of Women Coffee Growers was held in Quindío, which brought together coffee farmers from various coffee-producing countries of the world such as Brazil, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Kenya, El Salvador, among others. .
In 1972, the first woman was elected as a member of the National Committee of Coffee Growers, the highest union management body that, with the participation of members of the Colombian Government, discusses and sets policies for the sector.
In recent decades, female participation in coffee institutions has accelerated substantially, to such an extent that, of the seven management positions in the FNC at the central level, three are held by women.
On the other hand, since 1931, when the coffee certificate was born, women can have this union identity document that allows them to choose and be elected and additionally, since 2006, access financial services.
Likewise, the FNC has been a pioneer with the national government, through the Vice-Presidency of the Republic, in promoting a gender equity policy in rural Colombia.
This ambitious gender equality strategy developed by the FNC for several years has yielded important results, as seen in the last coffee elections in 2018: the proportion of women elected to municipal committees increased from 16% to 24% and almost doubled, from 8% to 15%, at the departmental level.
There are also many other actions, such as the National Meeting of Women Coffee Growers, workshops on empowerment, leadership and gender equity, which have been implemented to promote the presence and participation of women in union affairs.
“Advances in gender equality in the coffee sector have been substantial. They have gained prominence in all the links of the chain. There is still a lot to be done, but the institutional commitment to achieve it is transversal and covers all areas at all levels,” said Claudia Rodríguez, coordinator of the FNC’s Gender Equality Program.
“Although we have been working for some time, now we have been made much more visible, so much so that there was already a Coffee Congress chaired by women: the president and the two vice presidents were women. That is already a big step forward,” says Flor Matilde Sacristán, a delegate from Cundinamarca who was the second vice president at the 86th Coffee Congress (2018).
Potential with gender equity
Nestlé Nespresso, through its AAA (Triple A) Sustainable Quality Program that it has been developing in Colombia for more than 15 years, recognizes that gender equality is a fundamental element for the quality, sustainability and productivity of the value chain of the coffee, which should be incorporated into the training and empowerment processes of coffee communities.
That is why it has developed a gender strategy focused on this initiative incorporating the design and implementation of interventions, forums and specific training that empower women, who also represent about 30% of the more than 30,000 coffee growers that the Quality Program Sustainable AAA accompanies in Colombia. The ultimate goal is to reduce gender gaps.