Highlight on our Guatemalan Host ACODIHUE

Guatemala is a land with a multitude of cultures, languages and traditions woven tightly and colorfully together like the patterned textiles on display in every market. The Farmer-to-Farmer program matches volunteers from the U.S. with agricultural partners in countries like Guatemala to train locals on different topics. 

The Asociación de Cooperación al Desarrollo Integral de Huehuetenango (ACODIHUE) is an agricultural association that supports smallholder farmers. It offers training and fair wages for indigenous people, equal opportunities for women, and social services. ACODIHUE works with coffee and honey producers in the mountains of the department of Huehuetenango and provides them with financial and agricultural training and assistance to ensure they get the most fruitful harvests possible. The coffee produced is both for export and domestic consumption while the honey is for domestic consumption only. As a second-level organization, and because of its ethnic diversity, it is a pluricultural and multilingual association, with representatives from nine ethnic groups. 

To contribute to its various projects and needs, ACODIHUE has requested volunteer experts from the Farmer-to-Farmer program in different fields. The first two volunteers arrived in July 2019 to assist in coffee marketing and organic coffee production. 

Volunteer Tommy Bassett, working on coffee marketing for over 13 years, supported ACODIHUE with the marketing of its specialty coffees. He visited several coffee fields, talked to smallholder farmers, and had meetings with local technicians. He created a marketing and sales plan, provided a list of potential international clients, conducted trainings on strategies to increase sales, and gave recommendations so ACODIHUE could be more competitive locally and internationally.

Along with Tommy, volunteer Arthur Bassett, an Organic Agriculture Inspector, supported the association with organic coffee production. He also visited several smallholder farmers located in different microclimates in Huehuetenango to assess their current production processes and provide recommendations to organic coffee producers, especially youth. He also gave workshops on how to convert conventional coffee into organic. 

A third volunteer was fielded in August 2019 to create design improvements for the brands they currently offer. Melissa Delzio, an independent designer from Portland, Oregon with 15 years of experience creating print and interactive work for international brands, local businesses, nonprofits and educational institutions was the chosen volunteer. She designed two new coffee bags, one coffee label (front/back) and a full label for two sizes of honey while ensuring the brand identity was compelling. 

Along with members of the association, she defined a color palette, font choices, and put together a full suit of illustrations that can be used as a part of the package design, or to highlight a future social media post. Melissa, who won our “Volunteer of the Year” award in 2019 wrote about her experience in Guatemala here. 

Finally, in October 2019 volunteer Cesar Flores, an Advanced Beekeeper with over 10 years of experience, supported the association by visiting several small beekeepers to diagnose their problems and provide them with feasible solutions to increase their honey production and quality. 

More recently, ACODIHUE had the three best Guatemalan coffees in the Taza Dorada Fairtrade (Fairtrade Golden Cup) 2020 contest, with 88+ points out of 100.