Bean Voyage launches women-powered coffee coalition in Chiapas
Bean Voyage tied regenerative coffee to training, seed capital and buyer access for about 500 women farmers in Chiapas. A 2026 summit will match 25 buyers with 25 producers.
Bean Voyage announced the first Women-Powered Coffee Coalition, a five-partner program for about 500 women smallholder coffee farmers across producer groups in Chiapas, Mexico, with technical training, seed capital and direct buyer access. The coalition is led by Bean Voyage with the Coffee Quality Institute, Coffee Circle, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and Falcon Specialty.
Bean Voyage scheduled the Women-Powered Coffee Summit for October 15-17, 2026, in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, with 150 women producers expected to attend. The evening before the summit opens, the group plans a matchmaking dinner for 25 buyers and 25 producers.
The coalition is designed for women growers in Chiapas who face a triple barrier: limited knowledge of post-harvest processing that can add value, limited access to capital and limited relationships with buyers who pay specialty prices. The program ties training, financing and market access to measurable income gains. Itzel Mendoza Olmos, Bean Voyage’s head of country for Mexico, said women in Chiapas do the hardest work in coffee and receive the least of its rewards, and that the program is intended to close that gap with a market-focused bundle of services.
Women provide up to 70% of labor in coffee production, according to the International Coffee Organization, while facing lower access to land, credit, information and market opportunities. Bean Voyage is pairing direct buyers, seed money and a summit built around commerce.
The new coalition also extends a model Bean Voyage has been building for years. Founded in 2016 by SungHee Tark and Abhinav Khanal and registered as a U.S. nonprofit in 2019, the organization has connected more than 1,300 women producers directly to markets, generating more than $1.4 million in direct income and another $800,000 through seed grants and support programs. It has hosted four Women-Powered Coffee Summits, won the Specialty Coffee Association’s 2026 Sustainability Award in the nonprofit category and, through its Farmer School for Resilient Communities with The Starbucks Foundation, has trained more than 600 women coffee farmers and distributed over $115,000 in seed funds.
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