Supporting the Expansion of Nicaragua’s Sustainable Coffee Frontier

In 2020, the Development Facility promoted the expansion of Nicaragua’s sustainable coffee frontier through a project with a coffee association (ASOCAFENS), whose members are mostly clients from Banco Lafise. The project assisted the association in structuring the management system of their Designation of Origin, “Café Dipilto,” the first of its kind in Nicaragua, which certifies special, sustainably produced coffee grown in the Nueva Segovia region. The facility also aided the association in preparing the documentation needed to register the DO before the European Union, expanding their access to new, more competitive markets.

This project was targeted directly at the end-borrowers, in other words, clients of the Fund’s partner institution. In the early on-set of establishing its DO, Asocafens chose to make environmental sustainability one of the key defining characteristics of “Café Dipilto”. Consequently, for a producer to be able to mark their product with the DO, they need to comply with a strict list of requirements that include sustainable production practices. Given that over 1,000 producers equal to over 3,700 ha fall within the DO’s geographic limits, the environmental impact that “Café Dipilto” can have over the region is substantially large.