Cyber intrusion spoils thousands of tonnes of coffee and yerba mate in Tierra Verde cold storage

A steady October rain fell over the valleys of Tierra Verde last week, swelling the Río Esperanto’s tributaries and prompting farmers to check their fields for water damage. The wet season, which usually coincides with the final coffee bloom, arrived a week earlier than historic averages.

Harvest crews in San Vicente were preparing to load the season’s coffee beans and yerba mate leaves into refrigerated trucks bound for the federal exchange. The cooperative’s central cold‑storage hub, a concrete complex on the outskirts of town, stores the bulk of the post‑harvest product until it can be shipped to Meridian’s market.

On Tuesday morning, the cooperative’s IT manager discovered a ransomware note on the facility’s network, demanding payment in florins to restore access. The message warned that all temperature‑control logs had been encrypted, threatening spoilage of the stored harvest.

Cooperative leaders have called an emergency meeting with the Federal Office for Cooperative Affairs to assess the damage and secure funding for recovery. The full extent of the loss and its impact on farmer payments will be detailed in the report due later this week.