Just east of the Andean mountain range in Central America is the Cooperativa Agraria Cafetalera Pangoa. CAC Pangoa was founded in 1977 by 50 farmers from the town of San Martin de Pangoa, who had splintered from the larger and older Cooperativa Agraria Cafetalera Satipo due to the distance between their town and Satipo. In the early 1980s, Pangoa grew to nearly 1,700 members, and the future looked very promising. With an internal agreement to set aside 3 percent of every sale for internal investments, members were able to build much of the infrastructure that is still in use today.
However, the 1980s ushered in the turbulent era commonly known as “El Periodo del Terrorismo” which lasted for 20 years. The militant group, the Shining Path, swept through what had been a remarkably peaceful area of Peru, killing thousands of innocent people and carrying out a dreadfully effective fear campaign. As a result, Pangoa lost hundreds of farmers who fled to the cities in order to escape the violence. Since then, it has slowly regained membership and today has nearly 700 farmers...
For more information about CAC Pangoa Coop, please click here.
