Sustainable coffee production requires both access to credit and the ability to manage finances. Unfortunately, affordable credit and education are not easy to come by in most coffee-growing communities. Root Capital is pioneering finance for grassroots businesses in rural areas of developing countries by providing capital, financial education, and market connections to small and growing businesses that build sustainable livelihoods and transform rural communities in poor, environmentally vulnerable places.

By providing small-scale coffee farmers with affordable credit and financial education, Root Capital has been a key link in our supply chain for over eight years:

• Root Capital’s financing of GMCR coffee suppliers has increased steadily over the past 10 years, growing from less than $300,000 in 2000 to more than $24.8 million by the 2008-2009 harvest cycle.  This increase over the last decade represents a compound annualized growth rate of 63%, (where on average, Root Capital has increased its disbursements to GMCR borrowers by 63% each year).
• Cumulatively, Root Capital has disbursed a total of $82.9M in short-term working capital loans and long-term credit facilities to 80 of Green Mountain’s coffee suppliers. This amount represents 300 loans to producer groups across 11 countries.
• In the 2008-2009 harvest cycle alone, Root Capital disbursed 63 loans totaling $24.8 million to 57 of GMCR’s suppliers.

In FY ‘09, we supported Root Capital’s new four year project in which a series of workshops and technical assistance were to be provided to a number of coffee-growing organizations in Latin America. The goal of the services is to strengthen the financial management and entrepreneurial capacity of the participants.  The initiative’s first phase included in-depth financial training to four GMCR suppliers and pre-investment technical assistance to an additional four coffee-growing organizations in Mexico, Peru and Nicaragua – in all, eight separate financial training workshops to four supplier groups that included a total of 145 participants.