AsoSeykún is an Arhuaco community of indigenous people of Colombia. They are Chibchan-speaking people and descendants of the Tairona culture, concentrated in northern Colombia in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
With the support of Carrboro Coffee and in collaboration with The Chain Collaborative, they are pursuing a strategy to recover, reforest, and protect their ancestral land. They are meeting this goal by processing and selling their coffee collectively at a fair price, ultimately increasing internally-generated income.
96 people participate in collective decision-making meetings and trainings to work toward their goals.
The first stage of AsoSeykún’s project was a diagnostic of 23 coffee farms in their community to assess tree quantity and health as well as soil health. The second stage focused on infrastructure and training. In the first year, 17 full days of training received on best practices related to producing and processing high-quality coffee. As a result of this project and their learning, they were able to sell their coffee as dry parchment for the first time with their 2023/2024 harvest.
For the first time, AsoSeykún was able to sell 2,000 kilograms of dry parchment, which meant an additional $1,200 in income for the community.
Through our continued support, the AsoSeykún anticipate a 25% increase expected in coffee to be processed and sold collectively from their next harvest. We look forward to continuing to support their quality-focused coffee initiatives that enable them to reclaim their tribal land.
