Turin, June 27, 2022

From 27-29 June, a group of producers from the Ecuadorian Amazonia participate in a training imparted by the Italian company LAVAZZA, in the city of Turin, with the aim of strengthening their capacities and promoting the development of specialty coffee in Ecuador. LAVAZZA granted this invitation, and it is part of the program
“A Cup of Learning,” through which, during 2021,  more than  50 producers from the Ecuadorian Amazonia were trained virtually to broaden their knowledge of merchandising, sensorial and organoleptic analysis, specialty coffee tasting with selected samples of several countries, among other subjects. On this occasion, the producers will complete their training, by performing an on-site visit to the company plant. Along this tour, aspects related to the commercial management of the product will be discussed, and the producers will meet with the most important representatives of this multinational.   

Among the representatives of the delegation, there are members of the Federation of Coffee Growers of the South of Ecuador (FAPECAFES), which encompasses six productive associations where 400 families from the Provinces of El Oro, Loja and Zamora collaborate.  This organization is included in the deforestation and traceability monitoring pilot promoted through PROAmazonía, a program from the Ministries of the Environment, Water and Transition and Agriculture and Livestock, with the support of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Its objective is to promote forest conservation and a sustainable and deforestation-free production with a gender-based intercultural approach.

The commercial relation between FAPECAFES and LAVAZZA for the first export of sustainable and deforestation-free coffee from the Amazonia constitutes a milestone at the international level, being part of Ecuador’s pioneer initiative to reduce deforestation through the REDD+ approach.

The Ecuadorian delegation is also composed by technicians from the Ministry of the Environment, Water and Ecological Transition and the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG) and will be presided by the MAG’s Vice Minister of Agricultural Development.

Fotografías: Unidad de comunicación – PROAmazonía
Descripción: Capacitación en la empresa Lavazza – Turín

Key Information:

• The coffee export process will take place through FAPECAFES; 70% of the raw material will come from the Ecological Agroartisan Producer Association of Palanda and Chinchipe    (APECAP)  and the Organic Artisan Producers Agricultural Association “Cuencas del Río Mayo” (ACRIM), which are part of the deforestation and traceability monitoring pilot promoted by   PROAmazonía.
• This transaction is carried out within the framework of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) subscribed at the beginning of 2019, between UNDP and Lavazza, whereby Ecuador was selected as a pilot country, based on the advancements generated in the reduction of deforestation in the country and the will to work in the production of a deforestation-free coffee.      
• Throughout 2021, with the support of PROAmazonía, several coffee samples were sent to Italy, and, in December of that same year, the interest was confirmed to initiate a negotiation for the purchase of a 250 sack, 69 kilo-container of  Amazonian arabica coffee under the supervision of forest preservation. 

Fotografías: Unidad de comunicación – PROAmazonía
Descripción: Capacitación en la empresa Lavazza – Turín

For more information, please contact:

Jose Arturo Santos, jose.arturo.santos@undp.org