Members: 63 members

Location: Canton Las Marias, Usulutan, El Salvador

Elevation: 800 meters-900 meters

Established: 1993

Coffee varities: Bourbon, Pacas

Diversity: Vegetables, honey, corn, beans, fruit, chickens

Typical Farm size: 3 manzanas

Once the Peace Accords were signed in 1992, marking the end of El Salvador’s brutal civil war, the members of Las Marias (named after the community in which they now live) each received three manzanas of land in exchange for their arms as part of the demobilization process. A year later in 1993, the cooperative was legally established, carrying with them many of the aspirations they had focused on throughout the war. Although they had very little experience growing coffee (since nearly all the members are originally from other parts of the country) and lacked the knowledge needed to grow, process, and export green coffee beans, the cooperative managed to receive much support from the European Union to support the development of their cooperative with infrastructure and other resources.

Nearly twenty years later, the cooperative has seen much success, and just last year managed to reach their goal of “closing the coffee chain” on their own premises. Their facilities now include an organic composting factory, an extensive coffee tree nursery, an ecological wet processor, drying patios, an industrial dry processor, roaster, grinder, and now a coffee shop run by the youth in their community. With a special focus on providing positive alternatives for youth in a country plagued by gang violence, the cooperative is incredibly active in finding alternatives to involve the entire community. The youth not only organize and run their roadside cafe and bakery, but they also are involved in the 25,000 plant nursery, composting facility, and organic vegetable green house. Also on sight is an internet cafe and a living history museum as well as a rural tourism project are in the works.

In 2010 we visited Las Marias for the first time on an exploratory visit, and were left feeling incredibly energized by this group. We continued to meet with them while we were in the area throughout the next two years, more and more amazed by this group’s ability to bring positive changes to the members of their community with every visit. In March of 2011, a group of people from Madison and beyond came down on a Just Coffee Delegation to visit the cooperative with a goal of showing coffee consumers how we begin relationships with producer groups from the ground up. Finally, this past October we finished off our visit with Las Marias with a signed contract. We are proud to support this group of small scale farmers in their efforts to continue to improve the livelihoods of the small farmers who are organized within, with a very similar vision for fair trade.