The Asociación de Productores de Café del Oriente Caucano (ASORCAFÉ) is based in the municipality of Inzá, Cauca. Founded in 2010 by 10 producers, the group now has 450 smallholder members spread across the valleys of the Macizo Colombiano.Inzá is located on the border of Cauca, Huila and Tolima states, and benefits from a stable climate thanks to it's proximity to the surrounding mountains, humid weather patterns from the west and dry winds form the south. Coffee is harvested year round, with the main crop being in November-March. Despite being in a relatively small geographical location, ASORCAFÉ producer a staggering number of profiles. The group has 5 buying points on various sides of the mountain, and there are a number of microclimates that producers benefit from.
Due to long standing traditions of land division through inheritance, the average farm size in the state of Cauca is less than a hectare. As such, cooperatives such as ASORCAFÉ play an incredibly important role in the region, allowing smallholders to share resources and negotiate collectively to fetch better prices for their coffees. In many ways ASORCAFÉ is more like a small town than alliance of coffee producers; for an annual fee, they provide social security, health benefits, bereavement leave, even funeral costs are covered by the association. They have rigorous entry standards, such as having clean and well maintained fermentation tanks and pulpers. These standards are not based solely on coffee quality; having (or working towards having) a plot of food crops to ensure self sustaining food security is another entry condition. Entry also allows access to fertilisers, including pre-finance if a member doesn’t have the liquidity. It also gives access to their seed bank - producers mark the trees on their farms that give the best quality, then reserve some of these cherries to give to other producers in the association. In this way, low yield trees with poor cup quality are replaced by higher yielding trees with the best cup profiles. As a result, the rising tide really does lift all boats, as every producer works together to improve the association as a whole, rather than working individually or in competition with their neighbours.
