Feature espresso: Mauricio Urquina | Colombia

More about Mauricio and El Carmen:

Mauricio is an experienced producer and a member of El Carmen association based in Huila. The association was formed to help growers access the speciality market and obtain price premiums reflecting their coffees' quality. With support from Raw Material (our importing partner), the association has been steadily improving its infrastructure as well as members' coffee quality. In the winter of 2022 Raw Material hosted the inaugural “The Best of El Carmen” competition selecting top-scoring micro-lots from participating producers. This lot of Mauricio’s Pink Bourbon was amongst the top six!

El Carmen is a well established producers’ association representing around 300 families based in Acevedo municipality, Pitalito area of the Hula region. It was one of the first groups to join Raw Material’s Red Association - network of producers’ associations set up to share knowledge, improve infrustructure and gain stable access to the speciality coffee market. The ultimate goal being to achieve stable and profitable pricing and maximise the value that the quality of their coffee can have in the marketplace. Amongst the support from Raw Material was the physical build of a central hub and cupping facilities equipped with all the tools necessary for quality analysis as well as a drying space where producers are able to finish drying their coffee if their own drying space is insufficient during peak harvest times. Over the past five years Raw Material reports an improved quality control at the association level which is demonstrated by the increasing quality of the producers’ coffees and the recently realised potential for micro-lot separation. This in turn ensures that the maximum possible monetary value is realised for the producers’ coffee, significantly improving their household income.

About Raw Material - our importing partner:

Raw Material are a community interest company green coffee importer operating in the UK, EU and Australia. The work of Raw Material is centred around the vision of “speciality coffee as a solution”. A solution to sustainably improve the livelihoods of the many small-holder producers who have been historically marginalised and not receiving adequate value for their produce and contribution in the supply stream.

As RM explain:

Often the price farmers receive is lower than their cost of production. This situation leads to cycles of debt and disadvantage that compounds over generations.

The choices of the specialty coffee industry have an outsized ability to influence positive outcomes for producers and the wider environment. The value of the specialty coffee market continues to accelerate with a projected compound annual growth rate of 11-12% across the next 5 years. Total market value was estimated to be 35 billion USD in 2018 and is expected to grow to over 80 billion USD by 2025.

This is an exciting opportunity for development through trade. This is one of the few crises in the world for which the solution is direct and self-sustaining: with the appropriate investments and continued effort, the growing demand for high-quality coffee can be fulfilled by historically marginalised groups to great long-term effect.

To change the world, we need a powerful strategy. This requires that we make tough choices not just about what we will do but also what we will not do. We don’t search for the best coffee. We search for the right communities and work with them to build systems to produce high-quality coffee and connect to a stable marketplace. When the solution is well designed and community-led, results can be achieved very quickly.

Raw Material currently focus on working with producers in Colombia, Mexico, Rwanda & Timor Leste and they are our supply partner for Mexico and now also Rwanda.

You can find out more about their vision, impact and methods here.