Colombian women challenge coffee industry patriarchy

Oscar Medina, Tribune News Service

The lush coffee trees that blanket the misty hills of the Huila region in southwestern Colombia bear witness to a struggle. From bean to steaming cup, women are slowly making gains across the South American country’s prized coffee industry, challenging a patriarchy that’s prevailed for generations. Some are running their own farms, while others are forming cooperatives to pool resources. A few have minted their own boutique brands. Yet at a time of lofty prices for the soft commodity, gender barriers are still locking them out of full participation in the booming business. Colombia’s sophisticated coffee industry is experiencing one of its most auspicious moments in decades. Coveted Arabica beans surged to a record price in October when US tariffs on top exporter Brazil coincided with lackluster harvests globally. Prices held at historically high prices even after the tariffs on Brazilian coffee were later removed, as buyers remain short of inventory.

In the 12 months through October, Colombian production reached almost 15 million sacks of 60 kilogrammes apiece, a 14% increase from the previous year and the highest level for the period since 1992, according to the country’s coffee growers federation. Exports, including inventories, climbed more than 11% to 13.4 million bags over the same stretch, with about 40% going to the US market. Some women are now partaking directly in the gains. For the first time in nearly a century, they head two of the 15 regional committees of the influential federation, which buys domestic coffee at guaranteed prices. Women also make up almost a third of Colombia’s 525,000 registered coffee farmers, more than 10 percentage points higher than in the late 1990s. But they are still underrepresented in the industry’s leadership and economic rewards. And their growing visibility has not translated into greater decision-making power or access to resources. In the coffee heartland of Huila, the tests for women often begin at home. Nery Muñoz, 47, leads a small association of coffee growers in Palestina, a town known for specialty beans. Like thousands of others, she balances household chores with long hours in the fields, a reality that has barely changed even as the industry flourishes.

“When I have to attend a training session or a meeting, I make sure breakfast, lunch and dinner are ready,” Muñoz says. “I also take care of my grandson when my son is working. It’s a role one takes on as a mother, grandmother and coffee farmer all at once.” Like many parts of Colombia, Huila is deeply scarred by the country’s protracted armed conflict and illicit drug trade, and security here is deteriorating. President Gustavo Petro, who completes his four-year term in August, has encouraged local farmers to substitute lucrative coca plants for established alternatives like coffee. Gender aside, the women’s travails show how hard it can be to thrive from the ground up. In Pitalito, Yineth Sánchez, 34, and nine other women took almost a year to formalize their small cooperative known as Asoproca. Their goal is to produce and sell coffee under their own label, but a lack of technical and legal knowledge has slowed their progress.

“The process was easy, but we simply had no understanding about it, and it made us nervous,” said Sánchez, adding that they missed chances to move forward. “We even lost an opportunity to participate in a program with the regional government because we weren’t formally registered.” Deep-rooted cultural norms limit women’s participation in the sector, says Andrea Cano, an independent adviser who works with women entrepreneurs and young growers in Huila.

“It’s not seen well for a woman to leave her household duties to attend meetings or training,” Cano says. “Most of them lack formal education, which makes it harder to communicate, write proposals or manage projects.” Blanca Elcy Ome leads the Association of Entrepreneurial Women of La Reserva, known as Asmuer. The group was founded a decade ago by rural housewives and women displaced by the war, many of whom had grown up surrounded by coffee but lacked the training to participate fully in the business.

Blanca and her partners have created their own coffee brand, and they’ve received support from several public entities, including the donation of a coffee-roasting machine from the Huila Governor’s Office. They’ve reinvested their profits to buy another grinder and are now working on a project to open a coffee shop, but they need at least 30 million pesos ($7,858) to make it happen. That’s where most women get stuck.

Around 51% of Colombians have access to formal credit nationwide, but that figure drops to between 17% and 20% in rural areas, according to Asobancaria, the country’s banking association. While the gender gap in rural access is relatively small — 18% for men versus 16% for women — the challenges are structural and include costs to generate loans, poor accounting information, limited financial literacy and persistent gender biases.

“There are cognitive biases among loan officers,” says Jaime Rincón, Asobancaria’s director of digital transformation and financial inclusion. “They see a woman without property titles, shy or less confident, and prefer to lend to a man.” Even though women tend to have lower delinquency rates on 90-day loans, they rarely receive better terms or easier access to credit. “Women in rural areas have essential but unpaid roles as caregivers,” Rincón added. “That makes it difficult to prove repayment capacity.” Many live and work on farms they consider their own but lack formal property titles, a key requirement for accessing credit or joining cooperatives. Across Colombia, women account for 25% of national coffee production and manage 26% of planted areas, according to federation data. Yet their farms tend to be smaller, with 59% of female producers cultivating less than one hectare, compared with 51.2% of men.

Six years ago, Edmy Yojana Correa, 44, and her husband Andrés bought a 1.5-hectare farm in San Agustín, another small town in Huila, planting 7,450 trees of four varieties. She avoids chemical fertilizers and has earned the Rainforest Alliance seal, allowing her to sell at a premium compared to prices offered by the federation. Like many of her peers, she’s trying to consolidate her brand by participating in fairs and knocking on doors. It’s been a banner year, with high prices and stable production, Edmy said. But organic fertilizer and labor costs have gone up. Traditional coffee pickers are aging and younger generations aren’t interested in farm work, she said. Unlike other agricultural commodities, it’s almost impossible to mechanize coffee harvesting here because of the remote mountainous terrain. Edmy recently sought a private bank loan, but was turned down.

The public sector tries to fill that gap. Still, it can only go so far in a rural economy where 80% of labor is informal. Colombia’s state-owned agricultural development fund Finagro, which provides credit, guarantees and subsidies to farmers, has found that of every 100 loan applicants, only 31% are women. Still, the fund notes that loans targeted at women have gradually grown in size, with women-led projects receiving the equivalent of nearly $300 million over the past three years. Sometimes the women enjoy a stroke of luck. During a visit to Edmy’s farm, an official from the coffee federation mentioned a line of credit tailored for people with her profile.