Chakra
Chakra is an ancestral traditional agroforestry system practiced by the Kichwas in the Amazon Region of Ecuador. Chakra is a smallholder farm system that combines different crops and non-timber forest products. The idea of a Chakra is that the indigenous people can find everything that they need to subsist in their land/ Chakra. It should have trees or palms to construct their houses, medicinal plants to heal them from illness, crops to secure their daily food and crash crops to sell and improve their incomes.
Agroforestry
Agroforestry is a sustainable land use system, which combines crops and forest. This system has many advantages: protects the watershed from soil erosion, increases biodiversity, creates microclimates, captures CO2, mitigates climate change, etc. In addition to the production of timber, trees provide important, high-value products such as fruits, oils, fibres, among others, which can be sustainably utilized or sold for medicinal, food, cosmetic and cultural purposes. In this way agroforestry allows coffee farmers to have an extra income as well.
Gender Equality
Women have an important role in the coffee business worldwide. Women provide up to 70% of the labour in coffee production. Nevertheless, depending on the region, between 20% and 30% of the coffee farms are run by a female. Women have less access to resources, such as land, credit, information or specialized training, than men. This often results in a measurable gap in economic outcomes, including yields, productivity and farm income. We all have to get involved to reduce the gender gap, at Latitud 0° we take it seriously. As a company, we provide training, skill sharing and project follow-ups to females in the community. We wish to empower females to become house leaders, successful producers and role models for the following generations.
Women in coffee
“Study after study has confirmed that there is no development strategy more beneficial to society as a whole— women and men alike— than one which involves women as central players. No other policy is as likely to raise economic productivity, lower infant and maternal mortality or improve nutrition and promote health. When women are fully involved, the benefits can be seen immediately: families are healthier; they are better fed; their income, savings and reinvestment go up. And what is true of families is true of communities and, eventually, whole countries.” – Kofi Annan (Former UN Secretary, 2006)
That’s the reason why we are empowering women in the coffee business. We work together with a women’s association in Ecuador, which is doing an amazing work and produces high quality canephora. Final consumers should not only know where they are getting their coffee but who is responsible for it. That is the reason why we have created a symbol to highlight that this coffee was fairly produced and traded by women.
