Bolivian coffee is just starting to make a name for itself in the world of Specialty coffees. Once considered a producer of low-quality coffee, only suitable for blended roasts, Bolivia is working to change its image one bean at a time. For this heavily impoverished country, it is a matter of creating the infrastructure, technology, and skills needed to produce a quality product that supports economic, social, and environmental sustainability. Initiatives such as Fair Trade and organic, along with economic development projects have provided opportunity and support to coffee producers on the local, national, and international level.

Bolivia is located in the western heart of South America and covers an area of 1,098,581 square kilometers – roughly three times the size of Montana. Two ranges of the Andes Mountains stretch across western Bolivia and shape the country’s three major geographic regions: the mountainous highlands and Altiplano in the west, the semitropical Yungas and temperate valleys of the eastern mountain slopes, and the tropical lowlands that span across the northern and eastern regions, known as the Oriente.

Coffee production in Bolivia is concentrated in the rural areas of the Yungas, where approximately 95% cultivation occurs. Other growing regions include Santa Cruz, Beni, Cochabamba, Tarija, and Pando. While commercial farms and haciendas exist, governmental land reforms have expropriated most of the large landholdings and redistributed them back to rural farming families. These small plots range from 1-8 hectares and produce between 85-95% of Bolivia’s coffee, most of which is the Arabica variety and grown organically.

Bolivia has all the ingredients to be a high-quality coffee producer, such as altitude, fertile soil, and a consistent rainy season. However, the rugged terrain and lack of infrastructure and technology make post-harvest quality control a challenging task. Funds from development agencies are working to establish processing facilities in rural areas so that farmers have access to the resources that will help ensure quality beans, while also adding value to their product4.

Within the entire industry, 28 privately owned firms control more than 70 percent of coffee export trade. The remaining percentage is traded by Bolivia’s 17 coffee cooperatives. Both the private and cooperative sectors are members of the Bolivian Coffee Committee, or Cobolca. Most of Bolivia’s (green) beans are exported to the United States, Germany and other parts of Europe, the Russian Federation, and Japan.

 




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