Unión Majomut

Unión Majomut is an organization formed by small coffee producers in the Altos de Chiapas region, seeking to improve the living conditions of the families of its members in harmony with the environment through food diversification for food security with the participation of women and through the production and marketing of quality organic products for consumers.

Unión Majomut strives for a world where coffee-growing families can improve their living conditions through the production, processing, and marketing of organic coffee and other products at the local and regional levels, ensuring food security, conserving the environment, and where everyone participates democratically in the organization’s decision-making, fostering a culture of saving among small producer families.

Unión Majomut was founded in 1981 and was legally registered on March 9, 1983, as the "Unión de Ejidos y Comunidades Cafeticultores Beneficio Majomut R.I. de C.V.," with the objective of improving the production, processing, and marketing of coffee for its members. It is an organization that seeks the comprehensive improvement of living conditions in communities, promoting programs for housing improvement and self-construction, improving basic grain production, food self-sufficiency, organizing productive initiatives for women, and forming a small rural bank. Starting with the 2012-2013 cycle, the Unión Majomut began operating under the new name "Unión de Productores Orgánicos Beneficio Majomut de S. de P. R. de R. L."

The operational structure of the Organization is governed by legal norms as well as the customs and traditions of the indigenous Tzotzil and Tzeltal communities that comprise it. The organization has had a 40+ year trajectory of indigenous grassroots development in the region of Los Altos de Chiapas. Today, the organization spans the municipios of Chenalhó, Cancuc, Tenejapa, Oxchuc and Pantelhó.

Unión Majomut aims to realize development alternatives such as:

1. The production, industrialization, and marketing of coffee for export markets, eliminating intermediaries, whether state agencies or private companies.
2. The process of conversion to organic agriculture as a social project to defend the territory through land conservation to produce healthy and quality products.
3. Fostering, promoting, and strengthening the social and economic development of its members, as well as ensuring transparency in the democratic decision-making process based on their customs and traditions.
4. Seeking and promoting research, experimentation, and training, as well as exploring new alternative techniques to develop technology applicable to coffee production that contributes to soil and environmental conservation.
5. Promoting and strengthening crop diversification according to the ecosystem and protecting ecological balance, as well as the conversion to organic agriculture as a social project to defend the territory through land conservation to produce healthy and quality products.
6. Encouraging women's participation and gender equity within the organization.
7. Strengthening food self-sufficiency production (e.g., milpa, collective production of organic vegetables, and poultry farm modules) as a process of building food autonomy for its members.
8. Promoting the economic, social, and cultural improvement of its members; as well as promoting and supporting the rescue of indigenous knowledge and traditional techniques appropriate for coffee cultivation and other activities.
9. Supporting and facilitating linkage, communication, and coordination with other organizations, networks of organizations at the regional, state, national, and international levels.

Information and photos courtesy of Unión Majomut.

Tasting notes: milk chocolate, caramel, raisin, almond, chamomile and lemon zest, with a full body and lingering, sweet aftertaste.