Video: Colombia partnership sees coffee farmers create carbon credits and forest corridors

1,000+ farmers are planting a quarter of a million shade trees in agroforestry drive

Our long-running project in Colombia’s southern Meta region continues to expand, bringing new benefits to the more than 1,000 coffee farmers involved. The project – which combines agroforestry systems with coffee farming and is gradually growing a forest corridor between two of Colombia’s national parks – is an alliance of our local company, Carcafe, with partners including the Lavazza Foundation, Germany’s GIZ and funders BMZ, Rabobank ACORN, and Solidaridad. Together we are pursuing a positive transformation for farmers and the ecology of a region once beset by conflict.

Since 2018, the project has delivered shade trees annually to more than 1,000 participating coffee farms in the region. Volcafe Way field teams are currently supporting the delivery of 250,000 shade trees which will be planted according to agroforestry systems specially designed for the project.

As the shade trees take root in 1,500 hectares of coffee fields that support 6 million coffee bushes, they will join with 2,250 hectares of native forest and 200 hectares of forest grazing systems in building a biological bridge between the Sierra de la Macarena and Sumapaz national parks. What’s more, as the coffee farms capture and store carbon in the land, they have begun generating carbon credits: So far, 171 farmers have generated 1,624 Carbon Removal Units (CRUs) worth €56,840.

This short video captures the excitement of coffee farmers and partners as this project continues to expand its impact.