Sipping from the cup of access and equity - Pachamama Coffee Cooperative

Thirty years ago, Thaleon Tremain embarked on his Peace Corps assignment in Bolivia, focusing on economic empowerment. Little did he know that those two years of service would lay the foundation for a successful cooperative spanning six countries and three continents, and that, as co-founder and CEO, he would have the opportunity every day to thank the farmers whose leadership, hard work, and persistence inspired him to play a role in building it.

“During that time,” Thaleon says, “I saw firsthand how the global economy treats small-scale farmers. In Bolivia, the person who often works the hardest, a farmer, is paid the least. She earns less—and faces greater risk—than the processor who earns less than the distributor, who earns less than the marketer, who earns less than the retailer.”

“Coffee generates more than $200 billion of annual sales,” Thaleon adds, “but very little of that money flows back to the farmer.”

Today, Pachamama Coffee Cooperative is the first coffee roaster in the country to be 100 percent owned and governed by the 200,000 small-scale coffee farm families who collectively own the federated cooperative system.

About twenty years ago, the Cooperative Development Foundation (CDF) provided a grant—the first funds the fledgling project had ever received—to support an organizational development trip to Latin America.

The investment by CDF has had ripple effects: on farmers across the globe, on co-op staff (and happy customers) in the United States, and even on NCBA CLUSA, as Thaleon later led an NCBA CLUSA Cooperative Working Group delegation on a mission to Cuba.

But the co-op’s story begins with a man named Raúl del Águila, whom Thaleon views as a cooperative hero. Raúl led a Peruvian fair trade export co-op called Cocla representing 23 local community co-ops and more than 8,500 small-scale farmers in Peru. Thaleon had met Raúl and discovered they shared a common dream: a successful coffee company with excellent product and farmer-centered benefit.

With CDF’s support, Thaleon traveled to El Salvador, where he spent time learning from NCBA CLUSA project director (and later Cooperative Hall of Fame inductee) Stanley Kuehn; they toured coffee farms and cooperatives and participated in the first Cup of Excellence competition in El Salvador. Here, he saw first-hand the challenges facing smallholder producers.

“The majority of coffee farmers have no access to financial capital or to the consumers of their own coffee. And as a result, they are price takers,” Thaleon notes. “They are forced to accept global commodity prices that they have no control over. The imbalance of power in the coffee industry is extreme.”

The co-op was ready to be born. Thaleon developed the marketing strategy, Raúl del Águila and another leader, Carlos Vargas Leíton, spent two long days writing the bylaws that would unite the five founding members: Cocla of Peru, Prodecoop of Nicaragua, Manos Campesinas of Guatemala, La Union Regional of Mexico, and the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union of Ethiopia.

“Our dream was to put a face to the roasted coffee,” says Carlos, current Vice President of Pachamama and General Manager of Manos Campesinas in Guatemala, “to be more than just commodity producers.”

“They wrote the code for the future of Pachamama and designed an innovative business model to generate sustainable impact for coffee farmers,” Thaleon says. “They believed Pachamama would be successful and they had the vision to ensure that those benefits would be governed by farmers themselves.”

The federated system created a cooperative network from field to cup, with a roastery in three cafe locations and nationwide distribution. Pachamama—which means Mother Earth in Quechua and Amara—was a fitting name for the new venture.

In 2005, Pachamama’s founding members each purchased a membership share in the cooperative federation and, to this day, the business is governed according to bylaws written by Raúl and Carlos in 2003, all thanks to CDF. Today, the five cooperatives represent about 240,000 farm families in Africa and Latin America, with each producer co-op owning 20 percent of the cooperative. Each elects one representative to serve on the board of directors.

“By working together, we have been able to build a bridge from those farmers to you, the consumer,” Thaleon notes. “Farmers can sell their harvest straight to the U.S. market. In doing so, they unlock the profits in their coffee. They can reinvest in their coffee harvest, their families, and their communities. They can build equity and capital wealth that provides a path to financial independence, and this better rewards their hard work.” He adds, “They get to live and work with dignity.”

Merling Preza, co-founder of Pachamama and General Manager of PRODECOOP in Nicaragua, agrees. “At Pachamama we are constantly working for equity in all aspects: equitable distribution, women’s participation, fair prices for our producers, and fair salaries. In order for a business model to be sustainable, there have to be benefits for everyone along the chain. We work constantly for a dignified life and a dignified wage.” She adds, “It was a crazy idea that we had for many years. The idea was to put the cooperatives together to be the owners of the whole chain.”

Raúl del Águila put a practical perspective on the purpose, saying, “We can do this ourselves, we need to invest and serve consumers more directly. We need to tell our own story, because whoever controls the story controls the cash flow.”

As October Co-op Month concludes and with the 2025 International Year of Cooperatives just around the corner, Thaleon Tremain has a call to action: “As conscious consumers, we have the power. We can demand transparency, and we get to decide what vision of the future we want to help build. We get to choose.”

“Pachamama serves as only one example of what’s possible,” Thaleon adds, “Shop at your local farmers market. Join a credit union. Start a food cooperative. Buy directly from farmers. Go build your community’s cooperative.”