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Maximizing Opportunities in Coffee and Cacao in the Americas (MOCCA)

Central America El Salvador Guatemala Honduras Latin America and the Caribbean Nicaragua Peru Agriculture Coffee

The MOCCA Program is a five-year initiative, funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food for Progress Program, aimed at helping more than 100,000 farmers to overcome the barriers limiting their capacity to effectively rehabilitate and renovate their coffee and cacao plants.

Context

Across Central America and the Andean Region, old and unproductive trees, diseases, and changing climatic patterns are adversely impacting the production of quality coffee and cacao, and forcing some farmers to abandon the crops, if not their entire farms. Rehabilitation and Renovation (R&R) can provide practical solutions to counteract these chronic challenges and are vital to ensuring the longevity of these sectors without expanding their footprints into fragile forest ecosystems. However, at present, most farmers are not renovating and rehabilitating their coffee and cacao plots, or are unable to do so in a way that maximizes their outcomes.

Opportunity

Smallholder farmer profits from coffee and cacao production are declining due to a lack of farm-level investment in R&R and maintenance, limitations that are driven by price risk in addition to insufficient access to training, finance and reliable genetic material for planting. The MOCCA program seeks to address these challenges.

MOCCA’s design is based on our theory of change, which is that if farmers understand the benefits of R&R, possess the knowledge and skills to conduct R&R, have access to high-quality inputs and affordable financing, and participate in higher-value trading models, then they will carry out low-cost rehabilitation practices that will increase their profitability and catalyze a cycle of R&R investments. In turn, these investments will lead to a more secure and sustainable supply of coffee and cacao for U.S. and other regional and international markets.

Strategy

MOCCA will implement a set of activities that provide market-based solutions to overcome the root causes that prevent farmers from carrying out widespread R&R efforts through:

  • Farmer training
  • Build buyer-seller relationships
  • Strengthen suppliers of genetic material for planting
  • Support trade association service provision
  • Augment research and dissemination
  • Facilitate access to finance
  • Bolster technological platforms

MOCCA aims to:

  • Benefit more than 100,000 coffee and cacao farmers.
  • Integrate over 40,000 farmers into higher-value trading models.
  • Support more than 950 nurseries and clonal gardens to supply high-quality genetic material for planting.
  • Facilitate over $64 million in loans to more than 29,000 farmers.
  • Increase productivity by 30 percent.

Partners

United States Department of Agriculture; Peet’s Coffee; Smucker’s

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