In the remote valleys of Mendoza de Rodríguez, Valle Verde stands as a community-driven cooperative, deeply rooted in its surroundings and shaped by close relationships between farmers, leadership, and land.
Today, Valle Verde unites 465 certified organic producers, with another 39 farmers currently transitioning toward certification. This transition takes up to three years, but as General Manager Rafael Zevallos Majino explains, “Producers are eager to make the shift. Not only for certification itself, but for the new opportunities and long-term stability it brings.”
Valle Verde operates as a 100% organic-focused producer network, with 465 certified organic farmers and only 39 producers currently in the three-year transition process toward certification. This strong commitment to organic production defines the cooperative’s identity and market positioning.
With a team of 10 administrative staff members and 4 technical advisors, Valle Verde’s key strength lies in providing producers with the right guidance and support to navigate certification systems. Beyond organic, the cooperative works across a broad range of certifications, including Fairtrade, Rainforest, Fair for Life, and various others.
This level of support is becoming increasingly critical. Recent changes to EU Organic certification (2025) have driven costs up by as much as 70%, while EUDR requirements add new layers of complexity around traceability and compliance to maintain these international markets.
Sebastiana Salazar represents the kind of leadership that defines Valle Verde: grounded in empathy, experience, and deep connection to the community.
She has been part of the cooperative since its founding in 2015, first joining the women’s committee in 2019, before being elected president shortly after. Following her first term, she was re-elected until 2027—a reflection of the trust she has built within the community.
During our visit, we shared lunch at her home with the Valle Verde team and her family. After a first shy fifteen minutes, her 9-year-old daughter blooms off. When we ask her what she wants to do when she grows up, she says “I want to be a leader, just like my mom.”
As a producer herself, she understands the challenges farmers face. Coffee income often comes only once or twice a year, while investments—such as building solar drying tents, fermentation tanks, renovating plots, or paying workers—require constant cash flow.
One of Sebastiana’s proudest achievements is the cooperative’s ability to secure financing and make it accessible to farmers: “Seeing how this money is now moving in our fields, I can’t wait to see the fruit it bears.”
This progress is the result of Valle Verde’s active effort to build and maintain strong partnerships across the value chain. The cooperative has worked closely with institutions such as Root Capital, AgroBank, and development programs like MOCCA (Technoserve) to secure funding and provide both short- and long-term investment opportunities for its producers.
It is these relationships—across finance, markets, and community—that Valle Verde has built to secure funding and drive change. At the heart of it all lies their most important network: their producers. During our visit, we met farmers such as Doña Melitta, Don Norberto, and Doña Filadelfia, each managing small plots of 1–2 hectares.
A recurring theme was the next generation. Many of their children now study in cities like Chachapoyas, Chiclayo, Jaén, or Lima—a source of pride, but also a challenge, as it creates a growing shortage of labor on the farms. Valle Verde addresses this through youth programs, aiming to reconnect younger generations with coffee and create future opportunities within the sector.
Life in the countryside is demanding, and coffee production is highly labor-intensive. Even outside of harvest, work continues year-round—clearing weeds, pruning trees, producing compost, and renovating plots.
Traditions like minga (a simple exchange of labor between neighbors) remain part of daily life. Combined with the region’s isolation, many farmers live largely self-sufficient, growing what they need to sustain their households and diversify incomes.
“When the heavy rains come, I can’t do much on the farm,” Norberto tells us. “That’s when I spend time in my workshop.” He proudly shows his latest work before adding: “Look at my house—I built that myself.”
Alongside coffee, families cultivate banana, yuca, and sugarcane, and raise livestock—especially guinea pigs, a local staple. These activities are less about income and more about feeding their families and maintaining independence. As Sebastiana puts it: “El campo es el que te da de comer.” (“The land is what feeds you.”)
1520 - 1820 masl.
Sebastiana Salazar
In its early years, the cooperative sold all its coffee through Monteverde. In 2020, they successfully exported their first container directly to an importer—marking an important step toward independence. When Alfonso from Monteverde introduced us in 2022, Trabocca contracted its first direct business with Valle Verde. Since then, the relationship has continued to grow.
Today, the cooperative produces around 60 containers annually, of which approximately 20 are sold directly—about one-third of their total volume. This steady shift increases their ownership, impact, and value creation for producers.
At Trabocca, we aim to further grow this partnership, built on trust and shared experience over the years.
Beyond certifications and market access, Valle Verde actively supports its producers through practical, on-the-ground investments and guidance. The cooperative co-finances key infrastructure such as fermentation tanks and solar drying tents, distributes over 500,000 seedlings annually from its own nursery, and provides continuous technical assistance on soil management, varietal selection, processing, and farm renovation. At the same time, they promote diversified land use to strengthen more resilient and biodiverse farming systems.
Valle Verde coffees are defined by a balanced and sweetness-driven profile, with a core expression of brown sugar sweetness, stone fruit acidity, and a clean tea–like finish. This combination creates structured, approachable cups with a long, tea-like aftertaste. Beyond this core, coffees often show layers of complexity, including dried fruit, spices, and nutty notes, with hints of floral and tropical fruit characteristics.
While early and late harvest lots may show slightly lower scores, the core harvest delivers consistent Grade 1 coffees, typically scoring between 84–86 points.
Valle Verde continues to invest in its future. Some of the key priorities currently include the investment of a truck to improve coffee collection for remote producers, as well as a focus on renovation of coffee plots. In their plant nursery the coop actively produces and distributes new varieties like Maresellesa, Obata, and Parainema. These varieties offer strong balance between yield, resistance, and cup quality, helping farmers to adapt to changing conditions while improve long-term income.
