Collaborative research underway to support living incomes of Peruvian coffee farmers

Under the framework of the National Coffee Action Plan, leading actors in the coffee value chain have come together to support a living income benchmark study in Peru with the Anker Research Institute.

Building on the ambitious goals of the National Coffee Action Plan, this research is calculating the costs of a decent standard of living (i.e. living income benchmarks) using the Anker methodology in key coffee production regions of Peru. The initiative is embedded in a regional consultation process to better understand coffee farmers’ incomes and the gaps for them to earn at least a living income as a milestone towards prosperity. The project will be implemented throughout 2022 with stakeholder dialogue and field work.

The International Coffee Organization’s Coffee Public Private Task Force (CPPTF) has a goal of economic resilience and developing pathways to prosperity for coffee farmers. This goal is underpinned by ambitious, time bound commitments to living income benchmarks and income gap assessments to inform strategic policies and Public-Private Partnership (PPPs) to close income gaps for smallholder farmers.

Peru, as one of the endorsers of the London Declaration and ICO Task Force member, is joining with private and public sector leaders to support this research in the context of Peru’s National Coffee Action Plan. The collaborative research will result in public benchmarks published in late 2022, and a series of regional workshops. The workshops will provide the forum to connect the research to the regional Coffee Technical Roundtables, who are the groups responsible for implementing Peru’s National Coffee Action Plan in close coordination with MIDAGRI, and with the support of the Green Commodities Program (UNDP and Swiss Cooperation Agency SECO). The benchmark research is supported by a strategic group of industry leaders and one of the activities of the CPPTF Technical Workstream on Living Prosperous Income, facilitated by the Sustainable Food Lab. The research will be used by collaborative projects, industry efforts and multistakeholder processes such as the Fairtrade Living Income Reference Price process.

Ing.Jorge Figueroa Rojas, MIDAGRI representative to the ICO Taskforce, comments that “the National Coffee Action Plan is the guiding instrument for the sustainable development of coffee growing in the country, and to ensure a significant positive impact on the lives of producing families, it is necessary to connect ongoing efforts with initiatives such as decent income, which will allow us to prioritise actions to address gaps and target areas. This initiative supported by ICO is in full agreement with the objectives pursued by the Plan in Peru, and we are sure that hand in hand with the actors in the regions we will be able to take advantage of it in the best possible way.”