Supporting farmer access to high-performing coffee varieties in Peru

World Coffee Research (WCR), in collaboration with 8 Peruvian partner organizations, is establishing a total of 10 new seed lots of high-performing coffee varieties across the Amazonas, Cajamarca, and San Martín regions with the goal of increasing the availability and accessibility of quality planting material for the country’s farmers. This project, supported by targeted investment from WCR member companies JDE Peet’s and Keurig Dr Pepper, will collectively generate enough seed to grow approximately 4 million genetically conforming plants on an annual basis as early as 2028.

“The seed lot project is crucial for ensuring that coffee farmers in Peru have access to high-quality, genetically verified seeds,” says Jimmy More, WCR Project Manager for Peru. “By establishing seed production plots with varietal conformity, we address a key challenge in the Peruvian seed sector, ensuring that future planting material meet farmers' expectations and contribute to the sustainability and success of the coffee industry in Peru.”

The varieties being grown in the newly established lots are high-yielding, coffee leaf rust-tolerant, and capable of producing good cup quality. All of the newly established varieties have demonstrated superior performance in Peru throughout a 7-year evaluation period within WCR’s International Multi Location Variety Trial (IMLVT), the world’s largest coffee variety trial. While some of the varieties being established in the seed lots are brand new to Peru and being imported from different origins, others, like Parainema, have already existed in the country for several years but have not generally been readily available to most farmers nationwide. Increasing the locations where farmers can find these new and existing materials will generate significant impact.

For Peru’s coffee producers, this means an influx of thousands of high-performing seeds generated annually that offer enough material to renovate up to 1,000 hectares of land each year. Over time, this project will result in the growth of millions of new trees once the lots are in full production—a major step toward boosting farm productivity, improving disease and pest resistance, and supporting producer profitability.

WCR is providing technical training to its partners in Peru, which include Cooperatives La Flor de Café, Chirinos, Cenfrocafe, Alto Mayo, and Aproeco, Associations Valle Verde and Aproselvanor, and agro-exporter Perales Huancaruna SAC (Perhusa), throughout the process of establishing these lots to ensure the same good agricultural practices (GAP) are applied consistently across the facilities. This collaboration will support the success of processes like germination and more to reduce risks such as loss of viability and genetic contamination.

“There is definitely a lot of value for us in the partnership we have been developing with WCR given the deliverable of the established seed lots will be able to offer the members of our value chain innovative and safe alternatives to address the pests and disease challenges that have been occurring on their coffee plantations, as well as to increase their yield,” says Hernan Pariacuri of Perhusa, “We have great expectations of the project and the impacts that it will generate for the families of coffee producers.”

Setting the stage for future variety recommendation and introduction

Peru is among the top 10 countries that export arabica coffee globally, and remains a key origin for the industry and therefore WCR. The Government of Peru’s National Action Plan for Peruvian Coffee 2018-2030 seeks to promote the renovation of coffee plantations for recovery of the crop’s landscape under agroforestry systems and the propagation of new varieties to support the success of its ~200,000 smallholder farmers producing 75% of coffee nationwide. As the country continues on this journey, WCR’s programs are increasingly integrating to set the stage for future variety introductions.

In the next few years, the Innovea Global Arabica Breeding Network, in which Peru’s breeding program at Instituto Nacional de Innovación Agraria (INIA) is a key partner, will generate improved varieties for evaluation. Until then, there is an urgent need to increase access to better planting material in the near term.

WCR’s nursery and seed sector program in Peru, along with ongoing work to evaluate the long-term performance of other potential variety choices for farmers via the IMLVT, will help bridge existing gaps and ensure the Peruvian coffee sector can achieve its ambitious goals—setting the stage for a brighter future for coffee growers in-country.

“For farmers in Perú, one of the major challenges they face is accessing quality seed throughout the various coffee-growing regions,” says Emilia Umaña, Senior Manager of WCR’s Nursery Program, “Through these kinds of activities, we are paving the way to create a much more efficient system for farmers so they can continuously access better planting materials as they are made available by breeding programs.”