Meet Idaly Calderón Robles — the coffee farmer
Do you start your day with a cup of coffee? Chances are that it was grown by a smallholder, like Idaly.
The global coffee industry is massive, valued at close to $200 billion as of 2023. But 5 million smallholder coffee farmers are living below the poverty line, making less than $3.50/day while working hard in what should be a lucrative sector.
Idaly has been working on her family’s coffee farm her whole life but no one in her community considers her to be a “coffee farmer.” That role is reserved for men in their culture. For that reason, Idaly has been passed over for every formal training opportunity for growers in her community and, in her own small producers association, she isn’t eligible to hold a leadership position.
She was never able to access any form of capital to purchase better inputs or equipment. So she runs the farm using her grandparents' practices, which are outdated and no match for an increasingly unpredictable climate.
Because the commodity price set globally has hovered around $1/lb for decades, Idaly’s standard of living is significantly lower than that of her grandparents and parents.
She knows the only way to earn more money, is to produce higher-quality coffee and sell it to higher-paying buyers. But she worries that she won't meet them until she can acquire more modern equipment.
There are millions of women in Idaly’s Situation
Bean Voyage is driving equity in the coffee industry by removing barriers for female smallholders in Costa Rica and Mexico.
Inequality in the coffee industry looks like Idaly.
The majority of coffee farmers are women and they face multidimensional barriers that limit their income and leadership opportunities. 70% of labor in coffee production is done by women in the regions where Bean Voyage works. 60% of the global coffee supply is produced by smallholder farmers, and an even higher proportion of specialty coffee.
BUT smallholder women coffee farmers earn less than 10% of the industry‘s revenue.