The COSTAS association is one of the 6 selected case studies contributing to the Geofairtrade project. The COSTAS association represents a tight group of small producers (just under 100) gathered around a community centre set up about 20km from the main urban centre (Bõa Esperança). The municipio of Bõa Esperança is located in the southern part of the state of Minas Gerais which itself represents about half of the total Brazilian coffee production illustrating the importance of coffee in the local economy. Brazil contributes to about 40% of the world coffee production.
Caption: Bõa Esperança municipio

The COSTAS association exists for some time with the aim to provide assistance to its members in terms of improving access to health, education and market. To this end the COSTAS community centre was set up which hosts medical and dental surgery facilities, a small library, a computer room with internet access and a lecture room. COSTAS involvement in Fair Trade is recent as its certification was obtained last year. As most of COSTAS members are involved in coffee production, the driving force behind its involvement in Fair Trade is to provide a better access to the export market.

Caption : COSTAS Community Centre

The COSTAS association coffee production support activities involves a small group of people whose role is to provide a better price and market access and agronomic advice to producers to contribute to the improvement of the quality and sustainability of the production. Therefore, COSTAS does not only act as a facilitator to the marketing of its members' coffee production, but also provide advice on sustainable production practices such as developing the plantation of indigenous leguminous species between coffee rows to reduce the use of fertilizers. Whilst the coffee is dried and the pulp removed by the COSTAS coffee producers, the COSTAS green coffee is centralised and sorted by the local cooperative CAPEBE before being exported.

Caption: Use of indigenous leguminous plants between coffee rows

Despite its recent involvement in Fair Trade, the COSTAS association was selected to develop the first GeoFairTrade demonstrator because of its openness in terms of data access and the availability of supporting data in general. There is a strong motivation to get involved in the project as it is seen by its members as a way to improve the visibility of their association and from a technical point of view, they are interested in improving their traceability system which could be part of the GFT Integrated Information system.