Colombia Huila

Consisting of a single paved road, the community of Monserrate straddles a ridge in the beautiful Cordillera Central mountain range in the southwestern departamento (state) of Huila.  At the top of the road is a large, brick church that houses a shrine to the Virgen de Monserrate, a statue of a black Virgin Mary that’s become a regional tourist attraction.  Most residents of Monserrate and surrounding communities are small-scale farmers who grow coffee as a cash crop, and several years ago some of them formed an organization called Grupo Asociativo Productores del Nuevo Milenio (“Associative Group of Producers of the New Millennium,” or PROAGROMIL) in an effort to sell their coffee at a higher price.  As the contractor for the five-year, USAID-funded Colombian Specialty Coffee Program, ACDI/VOCA introduced Atlas to PROAGROMIL in 2005.  Craig Holt, Atlas’ founder and managing partner, initially traveled to Monserrate as an ACDI/VOCA volunteer and worked with the growers to assess the qu