Work in origin countries
Twin Trading supports our parent organisation, Twin, across a range of development and capacity building activities for smallholder producer organisations in origin countries.
Our objectives are to secure coffee supply, manage risks and develop long-term partnerships. We also seek to develop supply from new organisations and to add value to farmers' coffee to strengthen their livelihoods.
Areas we contribute to include:
Price risk management
Strengthening producer organisations’ capacity to manage price volatility is a high priority. Twin currently runs an annual risk management programme for producer organisations across Latin America. The training programme is tailored to the ever-changing circumstances of the coffee market, allowing producer organisations to prepare and respond to challenges presented by volatile coffee prices.
- Funding: Twin Trading, local and international finance institutions, Fairtrade International (FLO)
- Find out more about Twin’s price risk management workshops
New origins for the market
Building on our pioneering work in developing coffee farming in Peru in the 1990s, Twin and Twin Trading are currently working with smallholder producers in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and northern Malawi to establish quality coffee supply chains. With support from the DFID Food Retail Challenge Fund we are implementing a joint project with Sainsbury’s supermarket to develop and market single origin coffee from Mzuzu Coffee Planters Cooperative Union (Malawi) and SOPACDI (DRC).
- Funding: DFID Food Retail Challenge Fund
Diagnostic assessments
Staff from Twin and Twin Trading regularly visit producer organisations to assess their progress, understand challenges and identify risks and areas for support. This enables us to maintain a close relationship with the producer organisations and a good understanding of their business. Not only does this provide an important assessment of risks from a supply point of view, it also enables us to identify where we can work together to strengthen their business.
- Funding: Twin Trading
CLAASE
The Comunidad Latinoamericana de Aprendizaje y Servicios Educativos is an online training and learning platform that enables staff and trainers working with producer organisations to access relevant materials and set up learning communities around specific themes. Members of the community exchange experiences and upload workshop frameworks, presentations and supporting literature to improve coffee knowledge in a number of areas including price risk management, quality, governance and financial administration.
- Funding: Rabobank, IADB,Twin Trading
- Visit the CLAASE website (Spanish language)
