New plant to raise profits

PANAMA. Despite heavy winds, coffee producers in Renacimiento, Chiriqui have one reason to celebrate.

Starting in September, they will have their own processing plant, which will take care of the cleaning, drying, and bean classification processes.

The investment for the plant was above $460 million, but coffee growers believe they will soon see a return on their investment.

Instead of paying $25 per quintal (100 pounds) of coffee to private processing plants, they will only pay $17.

The President of the Renacimiento Producers Association, Ernesto Lezcano, said that now with the new facilities they will be able to sell a quintal of coffee for up to $200, $70 above the $130 they currently receive for the 100 pounds of coffee.

The association’s 700 members raised $200,000 for the construction of the plant and the rest was financed by the government.

But not everything is good news. Around 3,000 hectares of coffee were affected by wind gusts that hit the region, which has decreased the amount of estimated harvest from 75,000 quintals last year to between 60,000 and 70,000 this year.

Even though the weather is not cooperating with coffee growers, 100 additional hectares have been cleaned up and harvested this year, with the hope of retaking harvesting 800 additional hectares in the next five years.