USAID launches the specialty coffee promotion program
September 1, 2006

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US Ambassador in El Salvador, H. Douglas Barclay, participated in the launching of the activities destined to the promotion of specialty coffee within the Agricultural Diversification program of the US Agency for International Development, USAID.

Since 2003, USAID has supported the Specialty Coffee sub-sector through the Regional Quality Coffee Program. The $2.1 million bilateral funded program which ended in March showed a significant increase in the exports of Salvadoran Coffee.

For this new phase, the estimated USAID contribution to the coffee sector will be of approximately $1 million. The USAID Agricultural Diversification program expects to work about two thousand coffee producers.

Also present at the ceremony were USAID/El Salvador Director, Deborah Kennedy-Iraheta, Salvadoran Minister of Agriculture, Mario Salaverría, Presidential Commissioner for Coffee, José Antonio Salaverría, Executive Director of the Salvadoran Coffee Council, Ricardo Espitia and the President of the PROCAFE Foundation, Mario Acosta Oertel