The small scale farming community of Monserrate is located on top of a ridge in the Central Cordillera in the Southwest state of Huila. Monserrate is named after the statue of a black Virgin Mary statue (La Virgen de Monserrate) that resides in a large brick church at the end of the only road that goes through this tiny village.
Through the help of a USAID funded Colombian Specialty Coffee program, Atlas Coffee's founder was introduced to the community an helped review their harvesting and processing techniques in an effort to help this small producer group improve the quality of the coffee and better position themselves in the specialty coffee market. Over the past five years the coffee quality has greatly improved and Atlas has cemented their relationship with local growers by agreeing to be the sole purchaser of all of their coffee at a premium over the internal market price and sells the coffee under the community name.
The success of this market based initiative program has helped this small producer group to grow and take on new members resulting in increased production, better cup quality through the implementation of additional processing improvements and the addition of a cupping lab.
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