OUR COFFEE IS SUPPOSED TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
Of course, as the owners of Café Pacay, we also need to feed our family and pay our bills or rent. Thus, we also need to earn a little to make our livelihood. But above that, we target to reinvest the net profits of Café Pacay in local social and ecological development. That’s were it all starts to make real sense. And that’s our impact.
[A small reminder, to be clear at this point: So far, Café Pacay is a private family project and not yet a registered company. So far we have done our work with friends and volunteers, but we want to become more professional. Nevertheless, we have big plans and plan to become an officially registered company in Bolivia in the next few years. Our future impact visions are:]
1. Impact: Reforestation.
With every pound of coffee you buy from us, we invest in reforestation of burnt mountain tops in our area. The exact space differs, depending on the amount of coffee that is produced and sold per year and on how many volunteers participate additionally in those efforts. But, the more coffee we make and sell, the greater the impact will be.
2. Impact: Organic cultivation in a natural environment.
We don’t apply herbicides or insecticides in our coffee. Instead we try to breed stronger crops and plant our coffee in mixed cultures, in order foster natural resistance to diseases and to maintain and stimulate biodiversity.
3. Impact: Fair wages.
We pay around 35% higher wages to our workers, compared to what is usually paid in the area. We limit the working days to 5 days per week. In the future, we target to install health insurance and pension provision for our workers.
4. Impact: Local community work.
Café Pacay is closely connected with the Granja Florida Project, that does childcare and community work in the area. In the future we aim to cross-finance local social projects. Here we think in particular of promoting the local school. In addition, if roasters of western countries become our clients, they are asked to think of how they might want to contribute to that idea (organizing student exchanges or material support by regular sending of paper, pens, notebooks, computers, etc. )