Working at AGAIG has offered me the chance to challenge myself in a freindly, positive environment! I have since learned the entire process of coffee production, gotten to know the local farmers as well as helped to expand our markets for people to try all over North America! If you are looking for a great place to learn about the coffee and artisan world- all while challenging yourself in areas that you feel you will thrive- working for as green as it gets is the place to be :)
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Nonprofit Overview
Mission: As Green As It Gets is a non-profit organization focusing on economic development and environmentally sustainable agriculture in Guatemala. We partner with producers from impoverished Guatemalan communities. We select our families based on their potential to produce marketable products. As Green As It Gets places a strong emphasis on protecting the environment and land restoration as an integral part of business management.We believe that economic development is the key to reversing the poverty cycle. Our objective is to lift our producers out of subsistence agriculture by helping them attain skills that can be traded for their sustenance; thereby providing excess resources beyond their survival needs.
Results: Prior to working with AGAIG, coffee farmers generally sold their unprocessed coffee fruit to large processing plants at a price that barely allowed them to break even. In the communities where we work, families are struggling to meet their basic needs. Since our founding in 2004, we have achieved considerable success. Our farmers have seen an increase of 33 % in sales in wholesale export markets, 200 % increase in retail export markets, and nearly 400 % increase in local retail markets. They have also been able to make impressive improvements in their standard of living by adding plumbing, electricity, and concrete walls to their homes, paying school fees for their children, and buying pack animals to lighten the load in the field. AGAIG helps farmers’ groups acquire machinery such as threshers and roasters, teaches them how to use the technology, assists in filing legal paperwork, coordinates export logistics, and finds buyers in the United States and in less scale in Guatemala and Canada. Much of this relies upon financing from donors abroad. Farmers are granted loans for machinery and land costs, and then pay this amount back with the profits made from their coffee sales. This model has been successful, with a 0% loan default rate. This year we are on track to export over 65,000 pounds of coffee worth approximately $200,000. All the income on these sales, less the cost of exportation, goes directly to the farmer. Through this model, we are currently able to work with 200 families with farmers in San Miguel Escobar, Sacatepéquez and La Democracia, Huehuetenango.
Geographic areas served: Guatemala
Programs: Coffee, Artisans, Reforestation, Appropriate Technology, Causemetics, Community Projects
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This organization's nonprofit status may have been revoked or it may have merged with another organization or ceased operations.