Celebrating 10 Years with Suyusama

Celebrating 10 Years with The Suyusama Program

This year marks a decade of partnership between Bird Rock Coffee Roasters and the Suyusama program in southern Colombia—a milestone that means more than just time. Direct Trade relationships like this one are the backbone of how we source coffee: rooted in transparency, built on mutual respect, and designed to create lasting impact. These partnerships allow us to work closely with producers, support community-led development, and ensure the coffee you’re drinking is as thoughtfully grown as it is carefully roasted.

Suyusama embodies all of that and more. For the past 10 years, we’ve had the privilege of walking alongside this organization—learning from its farmers, investing in its growth, and building something meaningful together. To celebrate, we sat down with Bird Rock and PT’s Coffee co-owners Jeff and Maritza Taylor to reflect on how it all began.

Here’s what they had to say:

So, back in 2004, the Jesuits in Colombia kicked off this cool program called Suyusama. It started out as a joint effort with their various social centers, but it has since grown into its own independent thing. "Suyusama," by the way, is a word from the Quechua language (that's what the Indigenous folks in the Central Andes speak), and it means "beautiful place." Pretty fitting, right?

The name really nails what they're all about: sustainability isn't just some fancy idea, it's how we have to live. It means being humble, living in sync with nature, and helping communities thrive through education and getting everyone involved.

Things really kicked into high gear in 2012 when Padre José Alejandro Aguilar Posada, or "Padre Joe" as everyone calls him, took the reins. Padre Joe's got a ton of experience in all sorts of related fields like organic farming, rural development, and even eco-theology. He really expanded what Suyusama was doing.

Now, he invites farmers from all over the region to join the Suyusama Project. There, they learn about organic farming, how to process coffee, and the business side of their crops.

When Bird Rock Coffee Roasters and our sister company PT’s Coffee Roasting Co. entered the picture in 2015 we hoped to buy the coffee they produced. But first we needed to establish quality protocols. We were introduced to Padre Joe by a mutual friend at Finca Villa Loyola. We offered our cupping skills and knowledge of roasting to help educate farmers in the project. We believe when farmers know what quality is, they can better value their product and ask for a better more sustainable price. This is core to our Direct Trade purchasing model.

So, when we (Jeff and Martiza Taylor, co-owners of Bird Rock Coffee and PT’s Coffee) first visited Villa Loyola we began to set up the quality protocols with Padre Joe. We contributed our cupping skills and knowledge of the roasting side of the business along with important equipment to help maintain quality via moisture control and processing. We became Suyusama’s only international buyer, and still are to this day, and also educated them on how to roast and sell their own coffee locally for a better price and boost the economy.

But it wasn’t just us sharing knowledge, these farmers also share their wisdom, technical skills and farming tricks with each other, which really builds a sense of community and empowerment. The Suyusama Project was really taking off and it’s participants were excited to get started.

As Padre Joe puts it, “sustainability isn't just a development plan. It's, above all, an option to learn about life and the world," he says. The whole point of what they're learning at Suyusama is to help people and nature live together in harmony, while also reaching their dreams and tackling today's bigger coffee producing challenges.

In 2014, Suyusama officially became a non-profit. Today, they're supporting 74 small rural organizations, which means they're positively impacting 1,363 families across 14 towns in Nariño, a region in southern Colombia famous for its coffee.

Suyusama's main goal is to guide strategic projects in three key areas: money stuff (economic), nature stuff (environmental), and how organizations run (organizational development).

When it comes to the economy, Suyusama focuses on sustainable, small-scale coffee farming. They're all about improving crop quality, growing a variety of things, and sticking to organic farming methods. In this area, pretty much all the land is already being used, so getting more out of it means farming smarter, not bigger.

They also have a strategy for food security and sovereignty, which helps families become more financially stable while also protecting the environment.

Suyusama has even helped farmers find local places to sell their seasonal goods – think fruits, veggies, honey, herbs, and other homemade stuff – by getting them involved in eco-farmers' markets. These markets let farmers sell directly to local customers and really boost the local economy.

Oh, and they've also started some rural tourism projects to keep traditional local food culture alive and well.

One super cool initiative is their self-managed savings and credit groups, which are mostly run by women and young people. This really helps them become more financially independent and strengthens the community.

Suyusama's environmental work tackles climate change prevention, how to lessen its impact, and how to adapt to it. This includes protecting tiny watersheds and water sources, supporting community water systems and tree nurseries, and setting up good systems for managing liquid and solid waste on farms.

These practices aren't just about making the environment stronger; they're about making sure rural communities have a future.

On the community and political side, Suyusama helps local farming organizations get stronger by assisting them in creating and carrying out their own plans. They also train leaders to work effectively with public institutions, helping them contribute to town development plans and other team efforts.

The knowledge, methods, and experience Suyusama has built up in Nariño are now inspiring sustainability efforts in other parts of Colombia. Their model has already supported an additional 167 farming families and continues to be shared through partnerships with other nonprofits and local organizations.

More than a name, Suyusama truly embodies its meaning—"a beautiful place"—through its work in transforming rural communities, protecting the land, and empowering people to shape their future. We are proud and honored to have worked with them over the last ten years and look forward to seeing the good they continue to do, and drinking the incredible coffee they continue to produce.