The ACODIHUE Cooperative (Asociación de Cooperación al Desarrollo Integral de Huehuetenango) was founded in 1996. The organization is located in the mountainous territory called Chuchumatanes in Guatemala’s Huehuetenango region. Small-lot coffee producers representing nine different Mayan ethnic groups make up the co-op. The cooperative provides its associates with food security and health benefits in addition to business services including marketing, commercialization and economic development focused on coffee and honey. There are just over 1,200 coffee producers belonging to Acodihue with average farm size between 0.5 and 4 hectares.
The cooperative began as an NGO and continues to keep the well-being of its members as its core focus. For example, ACODIHUE provides numerous assistance programs. Women and young coffee farmers are the cooperative’s focus of many of their programs. In fact, twenty one separate women’s groups are part of the larger “Manos de Mujer” group. They founded it 2012 to formally market these women-produced lots. Today, women farmers produce 80% of the coffee in the co-op.