Partner Cooperatives

When DLG was founded in 2014, we first partnered with this group of producers to improve the quality of their product and find markets in which to sell their coffee. The current 16 members renewed their values and collective commitments at the end of 2021 and renamed themselves The Coffee Growers of San Miguel Escobar.

Located on the shores of Lake Atitlan in a community where Maya Kaqchikel and Maya Tz’utujil identities converge. The cooperative’s name means “seed” in Kaqchikel, chosen as a symbol of life and regeneration as well as to convey the group’s mission and vision of protecting the rich biodiversity on the shores of Lake Atitlán.

Tucked into the remote, mountainous town of La Democracia in the Department of Huehuetenango. The Union was formed in 1998 and now has over 160 members, almost half of whom are women, an impressive figure considering Guatemala's male-dominated coffee sector.

Established in 1998 after Guatemala’s violent 36 year-long Civil War. A group of ex-guerilla fighters, who had previously either sought refuge in the highlands or faught in the Civil War, decided to reintegrate into civilian society by purchasing an old coffee farm with a low-interest government loan offered as a part of the reparation process when the Peace Accords were signed in 1996.

The Young Entrepreneurs of San Miguel Escobar is made up of twelve participants, all of whom are the children of the “founding generation” of coffee growers in San Miguel Escobar. This rising generation of coffee farmers formed in 2017 with the determination to deepen their understanding of coffee production.

La Suiza is an old German coffee plantation located in the remote tropical highlands of western Guatemala. The plantation was sold under a government loan program implemented after the Peace Accords formally ended the 36-year-long Civil War between the Guatemalan government and revolutionary guerilla groups. Internally displaced families collectively purchased land in La Suiza and built a new life as small-scale coffee producers.

Shigualos (she-wah-lows) Coffee is a united group of ten members from the town of Ciudad Vieja. Launched in September of 2021 by a group of second-generation producers, they seek to carry on the coffee-farming legacy of the generation before them.

Made up of two families of coffee producers spanning two generations who have been producing coffee in the community of San Miguel Escobar for nearly 20 years. Their vision is to form a third generation of coffee growers and continuing to advance as professionals within the industry,

This group began in 2023 as an initiative of De La Gente due to the generational problems that have existed by the lack of inclusivity in the coffee industry in Guatemala, directly affecting the creation of opportunities for women.