Honduras COMSA Manos De Mujer
Want to support women in coffee? Here is one of those rare opportunities where all that is good about coffee intersect. Simply a trifecta of organic farm management practices; traceable to women producers in the Marcala region, a protected designation of origin (DENOMINACION DE ORIGEN CAFE DE MARCALA); and a meticulous post-harvest standard of hand sorting cherry, cherry floating to remove less dense and damaged beans, proper fermentation, and extended drying times. It starts with a concept called Finca Humana (the Human Farm) at Café Organico Marcala, S.A. (COMSA), where the well-being of humans is the core objective and educating more than 1,500 producer-members to live in harmony with nature successfully everywhere.
The trailblazing ideas for using organic matter to cultivate high-quality coffee productively is only a sliver of what COMSA teaches about the power of nature through the Finca Humana philosophy. The focus of transferring knowledge is through week-long seminars called Pata de Chucho (pawprints left by a stray dog), which aptly reveals COMSA’s dogged exploration for human productivity in harmony with nature. COMSA dedicates funding from the proceeds of coffee sales to run a cutting-edge International school dedicated to filling children’s minds with possibilities and training them to be the future leaders of Finca Humana. And COMSA has significantly increased the participation of women within the organization, which has resulted in an active women’s group that processes its community lots called Manos de Mujer.
