Achieving gender equality and women’s well-being in all areas is crucial to developing prosperous rural communities and a healthy planet. The role of women in coffee is vital but often overlooked. Although in Colombia women provide 30% of the labor on farms and are responsible for 26% of the planted area, only 20–30% of coffee farms are owned by women. For Devoción, recognizing and strengthening the work of female coffee growers is a fundamental pillar of our sustainability strategy. For this reason, we offer a coffee series available year-round produced by independent women coffee growers from all over Colombia to highlight excellent coffees produced by women in an industry traditionally dominated by men. Additionally, every year during International Women’s Month in March, we donate a percentage of the accumulated sales of the current coffee offering back to the producer.
Achieving gender equality and women’s well-being in all areas is crucial to developing prosperous rural communities and a healthy planet. The role of women in coffee is vital but often overlooked. Although in Colombia women provide 30% of the labor on farms and are responsible for 26% of the planted area, only 20–30% of coffee farms are owned by women.
For Devoción, recognizing and strengthening the work of female coffee growers is a fundamental pillar of our sustainability strategy. For this reason, we offer a coffee series available year-round produced by independent women coffee growers from all over Colombia to highlight excellent coffees produced by women in an industry traditionally dominated by men. Additionally, every year during International Women’s Month in March, we donate a percentage of the accumulated sales of the current coffee offering back to the producer.
Devoción Colombia Sustainability Team with coffee producer Martha Obando
This year, we recognized the incredible work of Martha Obando, a coffee producer from the municipality of Gachetá in Cundinamarca, Colombia. She is the leader of an association called Asofincas, which brings together 32 producers who cultivate excellent coffee quality in the region. Responding to Martha’s specific needs, Devoción donated and installed new drying beds to improve her drying process, as her former beds had defects that affected the quality of the coffee. Drying is a very important phase in coffee processing, and just as a reminder, it is the final process of coffee processing, once the producer has harvested the fruit, pulped, and fermented it to produce parchment coffee. In fact, this process allows preserving its quality by reducing the moisture content of the bean to levels that allow its conservation, thus preventing its deterioration.
Construction and installation of one of the raised coffee drying beds
Additionally, 1,000 new Castillo variety coffee trees were donated and planted to increase the production on her farm. We are proud to continue investing in Martha and in our relationship with her, allowing her to continue expanding her farm and producing high-quality coffee.
Martha and her son, with the donated coffee seedlings before planting
Bird’s eye view of Martha’s farm in Gachetá, Cundimarca, Colombia
