Summary
The study focussed in understanding the impact of Rainforest Alliance certification on improving bankability of farmers. The study included farmers 110 farmers (from 22 organizations) from Peru and Colombia producing coffee and cocoa; 63 of whom were Rainforest Alliance certified. Another objective of the study was to improve technical assistance packages for the farmers to improve financial management and facilitate farmers' access to finance. The findings state that there are some minimum metrics that are required by farmers to record in order to gain access to credit. It was found that certified producers are better at tracking their financial metrics than non-certified producers and hence have better access to credit. However, lenders are more open to lending to SME's than individual farmers.