In June of last year, Coopelibertad of Costa Rica approached us with an opportunity to support an inspiring new program called Café Juventud, or Youth Coffee. The first shipment of Café Juventud has just arrived at our warehouse. It has the signature flavor profile of our Café Vida offering while supporting the next generation of Costa Rican coffee producers.
P22509 – Café Juventud – Central Valley
Almond with mild fresh citrus zest flavors with mellow acidity and sweetness.
This is an offering with impact, and we’re proud to extend Coopelibertad’s call for support to you. Check out the offering above or continue reading to learn more about organizations dedicated to addressing youth crises at origin and home.
The many challenges of coffee production are leading young farmers away from the industry. Worldwide, the average age of coffee producers is around 55, and less than 5% of the world’s farmers are under 35.
Coopelibertad, formed in 1961, has observed a widening generational gap among its member producers, who have aged alongside the Central Valley cooperative. Out of the 550 associated producers, only 31 are under 40 years old. Land in the Central Valley, Costa Rica’s third-largest coffee-producing region, is being sold for housing, industrial, and commercial projects as young people move to cities for employment.
After many years of brainstorming solutions, Coopelibertad formed Juventud Cooperativa and its committee in 2022. They began communicating with young producers, children, and grandchildren of members to understand their challenges and needs better and what kind of support would encourage them to continue working in the coffee sector. A year later, 70 producers under 35 had joined the program, and we were invited to learn about it.
Last June, Green Buyer Luis Arocha, some Cafe Imports staff, and Carley Kammerer of Wildflyer Coffee joined a call with Coopelibertad’s CEO, Guillermo Trejos Soto. Cafe Imports and Coopelibertad have been working together through their Costa Rica exporting company, Oxcart Coffee, since 2021. Carley is the founder of Wildflyer Coffee, a customer of Cafe Imports, and a Minneapolis neighbor who employs youth experiencing homelessness.
Guillermo shared their objective: to develop a program that achieves greater equity and inclusion for women and youth while reinvigorating the cooperative’s organizational, productive, and commercial model. To accomplish this, they have created a training program that covers ecologically sustainable production and processing techniques with the assistance of ICAFE agronomists. They also provide recreational community activities, barista courses, business courses, and workshops on alternative uses of coffee by-products. The coffee produced by the young farmers is sold with a premium, and the proceeds go back to the farmers and support the continuation of the program’s workshops.
Coopelibertad was founded on the belief that small producers could gain more knowledge, profitability, and freedom in business decisions by working together. The industry landscape has changed sixty-three years later, but Coopelibertad is championing the same communal principles to empower women and young producers.
Encouraging coffee’s youth is urgent and consequential. So, we asked, “How can we help?” Coopelibertad requested financial support, a home for the first lot, and a $0.10/lb premium. Since then, we’ve been eager to offer the first coffee from the Café Juventud program.
Another area of passion for Cafe Imports is connecting roasters to producers, like Wildflyer Coffee and Coopelibertad, who have created programs for the well-being of the youth in their communities.
One of Wildflyer’s two shops in Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN
It’s difficult to determine how many youths fall into homelessness, but U.S. reports are staggering. On a single night in 2023, over 34,000 unaccompanied youth (under 24 years old) were counted as homeless, 40.8% of which were unsheltered.
Wildflyer Coffee’s vision is to end youth homelessness, and they have been looking for ways to spread their mission to origin. We recently chatted with founder Carley Kammerer, who joined Coopelibertad’s call with us. Wildflyer is a social enterprise coffee company that employs youth ages 16-24 experiencing homelessness. They hire these youths as baristas and offer a four-month Work & Life Skills training program to help them transition into mainstream employment.
Before Wildflyer, Carley had been a barista and then a social worker, dedicated to helping people experiencing homelessness throughout her entire career. “I was seeing a lot of the same young people cycling through different programs.” She recalled one particular young person who, after four years of working together, returned to the drop-in center, still experiencing homelessness. “A lot of the youth I worked with could get jobs easily but would lose them pretty quickly. The stability wasn’t there.”
Combining her love for coffee and social work, she started Wildflyer Coffee to “teach soft skills while creating a community response to a community problem.” Baristas gain valuable job experience by working 20 hours on the floor per week, and they’re matched with an employment counselor who provides support for up to a year after their departure. “Success for us is our youth leaving here, getting, and keeping employment after our program.”
When discussing the Café Juventud program, Carley said, “Last year, I started becoming more aware of the youth crisis that’s happening in coffee… Poverty and homelessness look different in other countries, but essentially, there are a lot of youth living in similar conditions to the young people we’re trying to serve. So, I started thinking about how we can expand our mission across our whole supply chain. I wanted to start with what’s already being done by culturally competent experts.”
For Wildflyer, purchasing this coffee is a first step in supporting youth across the supply chain while raising awareness among consumers of the challenges future generations face worldwide. “I’m always thinking about youth. How can we be forward-thinking about our industry as a whole?” she asked. “Forward-thinking in terms of solving problems right now and in terms of the next generation.” While writing this, Wildflyer is profiling the Café Juventud offering. Visit their website for more information on their admirable work.
Like all the adversities coffee faces, the lack of future-generation farmers is a problem that requires cross-industry collaboration to solve. The issue is global, but grassroots programs like Café Juventud are a starting point.
We may not feel it presently, but the pressures making coffee production unsustainable will jeopardize the beverage we love as time passes. Coffee’s future depends on young farmers.
If you’re drawn to supporting the next generation of producers in Central Valley, Costa Rica, or want to learn more about all our program offerings, please call or email us. Let’s do good in the world through coffee together.
