Triunfo Verde

Finca Triunfo Verde is an organization of 346 small coffee producers from six municipalities – La Concordia, Angel Albino Corzo, Siltepec, Montecristo, Chicomuselo and Villacorzo – spread across 20 different communities within the Buffer Zone of the El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve in Chiapas, Mexico. The reserve is one of the world’s largest and most important cloud forests rich in biodiversity; it is Mesoamerica’s largest continuous cloud forest. Because of their isolated location, however, producers are also highly marginalized, making coffee deliveries to commercialization centers harder than some of its neighboring communities. The organization successfully faces these challenges and is a fine example of the cooperative movement in the region. Producers and their families primarily focus on the cultivation of organic, high quality coffee for international markets as their main source of income. Current top markets include the US (Sustainable Harvest, Café Imports and Equal Exchange), Canada (NJ Douek) and France (Malongo). During the last 10 years, Triunfo Verde has become a staple social enterprise, providing integral well-being to its associates and helping solvent producers’ common and often overlooked needs –access to finance for productivity projects, food security initiatives, health insurance, pre harvest and coffee delivery improvements, collection and marketing of final products, and other services that help producers retain greater incomes for their families. Finca Triunfo Verde attained their organic certification in 2002 and became Fair Trade Certified TM in 2005.