These are undeniably hard and unprecedented times for our community. We understand that you are faced with many challenging decisions that have an impact on today and tomorrow, and our team shows full empathy with each and every one of you. We want to give you a brief update of what’s going on here at origin, and the challenges we’re facing, given the rules and restrictions that our government has implemented in the past few days.

Situation at origin

In Colombia, the spreading of the virus is triplicating every 2 days and the country has gone into a quarantine phase for 20 days. We have chaotic weeks ahead. Thus, the particular characteristics of the coffee growing industry in Colombia make all efforts extremely demanding:

• Traditional coffee growers in our region are, on average, 65 years old. They were already a vulnerable population before COVID-19 and are now facing labor shortages and market uncertainty.
• The rural areas where coffee is grown are the ones with the least infrastructure and access to decent health systems. It will be a challenge for people in these areas to cope with the Coronavirus crisis.
• Implementing rigorous protocols of cleanliness and hygiene among the cherry-picking population and people in charge of transportation is absolutely necessary, but already has and will continue to increase harvest costs across Colombia’s coffee-growing regions significantly.
• As you all know, the financial situation of most small-scale coffee farmers in Colombia and around the world was already precarious, and we fear that the economic impact of this pandemic will further threaten their food security through speculation across global supply chains.

Peace of mind

We firmly believe that a poor understanding of the biodiversity and permanent disturbance in the wildlife environments have a lot to do with the viral threat that we’re facing today. Humanity has arbitrarily penetrated ecozones without questioning the consequences. Irresponsible agriculture has had devastating environmental and social effects. Fortunately, and thanks to your continued support, this hasn’t been our story. At LA PALMA & EL TUCÁN we have reassured our commitment to stay true to our beliefs and our vision of a collaborative, purposeful, and inclusive work that can share value for all of us while protecting our ecosystem. We have honored these values during the last eight years of operation, and today, more than ever, we will continue to raise awareness among all our stakeholders. We hope to inspire others in implementing environmentally friendly practices, creating and empowering communities, and shifting paradigms within their industries.

We put people first

The amount of information that we are exposed to is overwhelming. But the more we receive, the clearer the message becomes: the world needs to restore its balance. Oneness is no longer the norm. Collective efforts should prevail. The feeling of vulnerability that we are all experiencing today has put us in contact with the purest side of our humanity. A place where solidarity and empathy are guiding all efforts to face this situation for both our team and more than 100 coffee growing families who we work with; we are putting people first.

Stop buying coffee cherries is not an option

Despite the risks associated with launching a new harvest campaign under the current COVID-19 crisis, especially considering the market´s vulnerability and the indisputable decrease in demand across the world, we have decided to continue buying coffee cherry. We have decided to continue supporting all small-scale coffee-growing families who belong to our Neighbors & Crops Program and who have believed in us from the very beginning. We decided that this year our aim is to achieve stability among our community, even if it comes at an economic loss for our company.

Crisis committee

To help our chances of success, we have established a Crisis Committee that is holding daily working sessions and taking action when needed. We’re trying to address all angles of this pandemic: economic, environmental, social, and legal, and always putting our people and our community first. Should you have any ideas, please don’t hesitate to talk to us. Until then, we stand with you every day and assure you of our support. Thank you for your continued trust, and please take care of each other.