Domingo Rosales, EthicHub's originator in Honduras, comes to visit us at CryptoCafé

Domingo Rosales, EthicHub's originator in Honduras, comes to visit us at CryptoCafé

After successfully completing the pilot in Honduras, renewing and expanding the collaboration of its producers in the platform, Domingo came to Madrid to personally meet EthicHub and share with us his great experience.

Last week we had a very special visit at CryptoCafé. Domingo Rosales, EthicHub's originator in Honduras, came to greet us and visit our offices in Madrid. For those of us who had not met him personally or only dealt with him by email and the occasional video call, it was an interesting encounter. Kinda of like meeting your remote teammate for the first time. And as you can imagine, it was great!! Our online energy resonated even more in the real world. During his visit, we found the time to conduct a short interview with Domingo. We leave you with the transcript below. Spoiler Alert!!! As an EthicHubber, the Impact you had on smallholder farmers was groundbreaking! 

Thank you all so much for being part of everything we are building!   

Domingo and EthicHub team at CryptoCafé

When did you join EthicHub as an originator Node? How was the process?


Well, the truth is that at the beginning I was a bit confused about all this. I thought EthicHub's approach would be similar to how banks work but as I understood the model more and more, I was surprised by the simplicity of the approach; cheaper interest rates and a lot of flexibility when applying for loans, with amounts and repayment times set by us. It took me a while to understand how the cryptocurrency system works and how it is integrated into EthicHub and to be quite honest, I am still learning.

What was the situation of coffee growers before joining Ethichub? What differences have you found?


The situation before was the same as it always has been here. Interest rates of 5% per month and with the obligation to put up farms, houses or land as collateral. And the amount of the loan is only 40% of the value of the property, but if the loan cannot be repaid, you also lose the other 60% of the value of the property. And this situation means that the producer can only go from one harvest to the next without being able to improve good management practices on their farms. The difference can be seen in La Paz, which has been the first coffee growers to join the EthicHub platform. There we have been able to improve their lots on the farm and raise their cup profile. And the immediate consequence is that they obtained a better price for their coffee. More income allowed them to pay off their loans and be able to recover their mortgaged assets. A concrete example can be found in the case of the producer Alexander Moreno, from the community of El Palmo, who managed to recover the deeds to 3 hectares of land thanks to the ethichubbers who placed their trust in him.

Could you tell us Alexander's story in a little more detail? All of us ethichubbers know him because he sent a nice thank you video on our Telegram channel.

Unfortunately, these situations are common. This producer, Alexander Moreno, is a father of a household of 5 members; and brother of 11 in total, making him the leader of his siblings and his family. Alexander Moreno is a sound producer who has been working his farm in an exemplary way, for the past 7 years. However, his financial situation has been less than favorable. Up until then, he was only able to work locally to finance his harvest first, and then try to sell it later. Alexander was managing 3 farm lots but, already in December 2021, he had reached a limit in his efforts to pay back the credits. In the month of December, he received an ultimatum to repay his loans, otherwise one of the 3 farms would be auctioned off by the local broker. The lot in question was 3 hectares of land and at an altitude of 1500 meters above sea level, making it a specialty coffee lot. The other option that Alexander Moreno had, was to sell one of his farm lots to face the loan, but the offers he had were of a much lower price than the value of the property. Yet, thanks to your financing through ETHICHUB for our pilot project and the first phase, Alexander managed to pay off debt to the national marketer and thus recover his 3 hectare lot. This is a success story! And you don’t know how much this means to us! Today, Mr. Alexander Moreno will be making his second consecutive export. .

After the success of the pilot project, what is your goal for this harvest cycle as an originator node in Honduras?

Being already very familiar with EthicHub's proposal, with the flexibility of the credits, with the time of the same and the form and process, we started to sell coffee to the Asian market, where the price per kilo is much higher than here, regarding specialty coffees. The success story of the producer Alexander Moreno can be replicated among many other coffee producers.

And in the coming years? How far CODICAFÉ could go in providing financial assistance to small producers in Honduras?.

In the coming years, we will continue growing and incorporating other small producers who have realized that their farm is a business and, as such, must be managed. We want to convey the idea that producers should be responsible when applying for credit. In addition they should invest economic resources in their farms as through this, they will yield a better production and increase their cup profile. We will continue growing while gaining the trust of new producers. Parallely, we will maintain and keep reinforcing the trust that the ETHICHUB community has in us, focusing on coffee producing families, with financial responsibility and field work on their farms.

What would you like to say to all the ethichubbers who finance your projects and to the ethixholders who have endorsed your line of credit? And to the people who know about EthicHub but have not yet invested in the platform

To the ETHICHUB community, I thank you: You cannot imagine what the financial support you give us means to us, especially to those small producers who were trapped in debts that were difficult to pay until you came along. Your loans have come to the rescue of a coffee producing family and it probably won’t be the last. You helped us improve their productivity and cup profile. Thank you, Ethichubbers! And to those who know about ETHICHUB, but have not yet invested in the platform, I invite you to do so. Not only will you generate a financial return for your loans, but you will also help coffee-producing communities to be able to work their farms in a better way and little by little to better their farms and grow their finances. This platform helps to generate wealth throughout the financial chain and at the same time, in the coffee chain. I invite you to invest in ETHICHUB and help improve the lives of small coffee producers.

 

EthicHub

EthicHub is a ReFi (Regenerative Finance) protocol that helps unbanked farmers access capital at low interest rates in a win/win model where all stakeholders benefit from the interaction. Its crowdlending platform was launched in June 2018, and to date (January 2023) it has brokered more than $3M in microcredits to more than 600 families in 5 countries.

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