Martina Pablo Pablo ’26, a hospitality student at Cornell University, is transforming her rural Guatemalan village’s coffee farming practices through her startup, Martina’s Mayan Coffee. Raised in Las Sierras de los Cuchumantantes, where poverty is rampant despite the area’s unique coffee-growing microclimate, Pablo Pablo seeks to empower Indigenous farmers by selling coffee directly to consumers at fair trade prices.
“My hope is to empower Indigenous farmers,” Pablo Pablo shared. “Inequality is so bad, and they have no power to negotiate.” Her business, which sells beans from her family’s farm in Todos Santos, Huehuetenango, is slowly gaining traction thanks to support from Cornell mentors and her entrepreneurial skills.
Though the venture is currently small—selling 200 bags—Pablo Pablo’s goal is to show her community that their coffee can be sold at fair prices internationally, without relying on exploitative middlemen. With plans for expansion, her journey from Guatemala to Cornell aims to create lasting social and economic change for her village.
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