U.S. Will Award Prize to Best Alternative Development Coffee in Colombia

September 8, 2009

On September 10, the Best Colombian Alternative Development Coffee awarding ceremony will take place at the “Alfonso López Pumarejo” Convention Center in Ibagué. This event seeks to recognize the quality of the best-grown specialty coffee, produced by small-scale farmers who left illicit crops behind to grow coffee, honor the culture of lawfulness in Colombia and seek a better future. The ceremony will take place during ExpoEspeciales 2009, the Specialty Coffee International Fair organized by the Colombian Federation of Coffee Growers. The United States is the country of honor for being a great consumer of Colombian Coffee.

The contest opened July 2009. It is sponsored by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) - through its MIDAS, ADAM and Specialty Coffee programs - the Presidential Agency for Social Action and International Cooperation (Acción Social), the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) and Carrefour.

Of the more than 140 harvesters of specialty coffee that signed up for the event, over 55 samples made it to the semifinals and their scores exceeded the jury’s expectations. Ten finalists have already been selected and their samples will be analyzed in Ibague, September 9, by a panel of international coffee tasters and coffee-trained testers, certified by the Coffee Quality Institute-CQI.

The winner and first runner-up will travel all expenses paid to the Specialty Coffee Association of America Fair in Anaheim, California on April 2010. Additionally, they will each receive $2,000 and $1,500, respectively. The second runner-up is awarded $1,000 and the third and fourth runner-ups each receive $500. The remaining five runner-ups receive a machine for pulping, scythes or a Becolsub specialty machine. These 10 finalists also have the opportunity to meet the panel of international tasters - who are also potential buyers - hence opening the possibility to create new and direct marketing relations.

This initiative is all part of the U.S. Government’s USAID-supported Specialty Coffee Program. Since 2002 it has invested $30 million in the Colombian coffee sector.