FROM THE FIELD

Vol. 5, No. 2: Summer, 2006

 

 

 

Smell the Coffee

Global Economy Goes Local

by

Jean Tarantino

 

     What is happening to your cup of coffee? I traveled to Mexico in the spring to visit a coffee growing co-op and discovered that FairTrade is changing more than the quality of what is in your cup. I learned that in 1998, struggling against the odds to survive plummeting worldwide commodity prices for coffee, the coffee-growing families of five Mexican communities in the state of Oaxaca banded together to market their combined harvest as a single product with the goal of improving their lives of subsistence agriculture.

     For the families of Esquipulas, Lagunilla, Malvarisco, Lomo Canela and Santiago Zanica, there were daunting challenges. They knew they had to garner a high enough price for their coffee to return the 80 cents a pound it cost to produce, and they needed to make enough of a profit to sustain themselves and their communities. With the commodity price at about 40 cents a pound, they needed new buyers who valued their shade grown, organic coffee and were willing to pay a premium to support their sustainability and invest in their future.

     Bypassing the multiple layers of middlemen, or ‘coyotes’, between themselves and coffee roaster/distributors, was the other key to their dream of success. For this they would have to diversify their work, learn the jobs and take on the roles of the ‘coyotes’ and bring the sums paid to these intermediaries into the communities that produce the coffee. Adding these new sources of revenue and creating jobs would also offer alternatives to migration.

     To begin they needed three things: a democratically run cooperative structure to manage their business affairs and organize their priorities and tasks; buyers who would pay their needed price; access to affordable credit in order to invest in the equipment they needed to process and transport their product.

     And this is where FairTrade comes in. The Fair Trade Labeling Organization (FLO) is an international, non-profit, non-governmental agency that sets requirements and standards for producer groups (there are 300 farmer co-ops worldwide), and the buyers, importers, processors, wholesalers and retailers who collaborate with them to bring environmentally sustainable, socially responsible products to market with the FairTrade label.

      And there is more. Fairtrade is also about development, so there are requirements beyond the minimum requirement of fair price, for both producers and buyers. Producers are encouraged to continuously improve working conditions and product quality, increase the environmental sustainability of their activities, and invest in self-development through education, health and finance-related initiatives. Buyers are required to pay a price to producers that covers the costs of sustainable production and living, as well as a premium that producers can invest in development, partially pay in advance when producers request it, and sign contracts that encourage long-term planning and sustainable production practices.

     For the use of the FairTrade label on a product and to support FLO’s monitoring, auditing and certifying activities and its national offices (in the U.S. it is TransFair International), all the stakeholders in a transaction contribute a fee based on volume sold. To monitor compliance with FairTrade conditions at every phase leading to certification, a network of independent inspectors using a specially developed auditing system regularly visits all producers to verify that every FairTrade-labeled product sold to a consumer has indeed been produced by a certified producer organization which has been paid the FairTrade price. For workers employed on larger farms this guarantees fair wages and working conditions.

     Coffee, chocolate and bananas are the largest crops. Orange juice, honey and sugar are also FairTrade-labeled. The FairTrade label on an imported product, guarantees to the consumer that s/he is purchasing a product that fulfills this dream of sustainability for the families in our story and others like them.

     Relaxed, articulate and engaging 34 year-old Salomon Garcia Moreno is a third-generation coffee grower, farming the land that he inherited from his father and grandfather. Salomon’s pride in his history and the quality of his coffee harvest is as evident as his deep roots in his community and the land. He is a founding member of Cooperativa La Trinidad, comprised of small-scale coffee growers that cultivate family parcels of less than two acres on the western flanks of the Sierra Madre Del Sur in the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. Coffee has been grown here for as long as anyone can remember.

     Arriving in the town of Pochutla, a regional center for agricultural commerce on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, to attend the monthly meeting of the Community Representatives and Directors of La Trinidad Cooperative I simply asked the taxi driver for Salomon’s family home. In the heart of this town of 13,000 souls I alighted on the doorstep of the President of Cooperativa La Trinidad.

     I had ample time to ask my questions and learn about Co-op activities. The Co-op communities are some hours from Pochutla and most representatives do not own vehicles. Between uncertain transportation, farm and family responsibilities and small budgets, it is sometimes difficult to make such a journey and arrive at the appointed time. Since all Representatives must be present for a discussion or a vote, we drank chilled, fuchsia pink, hibiscus flower tea, and waited convivially in the shade until everyone had arrived, by whatever transport they could arrange. While Salomon printed out information for me on current Co-op projects, I fell into an easy conversation with Magali Martinez, a young woman who had taken the overnight bus down from the city of Oaxaca on the high plain, to attend the meeting. A volunteer with La Trinidad and about to graduate in biology, she taught classes in hygiene and sanitation, garbage management, conservation of the rivers and management of domestic water in the five communities. When I arrived home, she was happy to announce by email, that she had accepted a job with the Co-op.

     To continuously improve farming methods and product quality, La Trinidad funds seven internal inspectors who oversee all phases of crop development, quality and organic methods and provide ongoing education in farming methodology. Quality Assurance International (QAI), a global organic certifier based in San Diego, California monitors and certifies all phases of this coffee production, from soil management to product delivery, according to strict organic standards. QAI certifies growers, processors and handlers of food products worldwide, in order to promote cycling of resources and ecological balance and to conserve biodiversity.

     The large-scale coffee plantations deforest extensive tracts of land, uprooting all plant and root mass, then they plant coffee trees. This intensive cultivation exposes the soil surface, with resulting topsoil loss. Topsoil is washed away by irrigation and rain, and blown away by winds unchecked by protective shade cover. The result is a mono-crop supported by heavy use of petroleum-based herbicide, fertilizer, fungicide, and pesticide. While these practices produce a larger crop, it is a lower-quality crop, with problematic consequences. The fertility of the soil and the fabric of the ecology are destroyed. In stark contrast, the harvest of Salomon and his forebears has always been naturally shade-grown and organic.

     Never able to afford petroleum based chemicals, the families of La Trinidad have maintained a practice of organic farming as an unbroken tradition and way of life, and maintain a relationship of respect with nature. The intact eco-systems of the small parcels of the coffee growing families under dense tropical forest canopy support bird life and a diversity of plant, animal and insect life. The naturally composted soils are rich with fungi and micro-organisms, holding water and nutrients. Pests and predators are maintained in a healthy balance without the chemical crutches that carry with them high economic, environmental, and human health costs. The soil contains more nutrients, and the volatile oils of the coffee berries, responsible for flavor characteristics are protected by shade cover. Lower yields of high-quality, better-tasting coffee are the result.

     In addition to his role as a local coffee grower, Salomon Garcia Moreno is the democratically elected president of Cooperativa La Trinidad. He facilitates an association of 358 voting members. Located west of the city of Oaxaca the five communities of Naranjos, Esquipulas, Lagunilla, Malvarisco, Lomo Canela and Santiago Zanica fan out along tributaries of the river Copalita on which the families depend for water. The Co-op is a direct democracy--one person one vote--in the form of an inverted pyramid, with the General Assembly (all voting members) at the top and President and Directing council at the bottom. The President’s responsibility, in his words, is to facilitate and coordinate the measures, plans and decisions that the General Assembly raises and votes into effect by simple majority.  Individual coordinators elected by the Cooperative are responsible for actual implementation of specific programs and initiatives, and serve without pay, as volunteers.

     The projects of La Trinidad have grown to include not only the production of organic coffee and the activities related to that, such as the purchase of processing equipment, two small trucks, and a coffee plant nursery, but also family gardens, community 'microbodegas' (small markets), a mushroom growing project, a honey production project, community supply stores and related paper project, a community savings bank, technical assistance, corn grinding mills, a tree planting project, and a center for the detection of cervical cancer.

     School attendance in Mexico is costly for small farmers. Though tuition costs are minimal, a lack of disposable funds for books, uniforms and transportation has kept the farmer’s children out of school. Investment in education, as the largest of the Co-op’s social funds, has school attendance at an all time high of 80%. La Trinidad is also financing home building in collaboration with foundations, financial organizations and the Mexican Government, for members who contribute their own manual labor to the construction of their homes. With their increased income the families of La Trinidad have been able to diversify their food crops and so their diet, making for a healthier populace, while improving crop yields. Sales of their surplus food has become another Co-op enterprise. The Co-op, setting up ‘micro bodegas’ in local villages, is enriching its neighbors with a fresher, local, more economical and diverse diet, direct from farmer to consumer.

     This in a region where most people have relied on local buses to reach markets that are miles distant in order to supplement a simple diet. The two small Co-op trucks purchased for coffee delivery now do double duty supplying the bodegas with organic produce. These modest, local-economy markets sell basic products and have the added benefit of erasing the otherwise long delivery distances to established centralized markets in larger towns,greatly reducing fuel costs (which are about double those in the US) and hours of driving.

     All these savings can be passed along to local consumers, while providing new jobs staffing bodegas and delivering produce. In addition to selling fruits and vegetables, the bodegas will sell other local produce like Co-op honey and mushrooms, corn, eggs, beans, and other simple necessities, like beverages and paper (formerly in uncertain supply). Oddly enough, this FairTrade structure looks less like the global paradigm of the multinationals’ and more like a thriving local economy used to look, with the farmer more in control of the business cycle, becoming less (rather than more) specialized and maintaining traditional connections to the land, cultural traditions and social fabric. These farmers increase their expertise and enhance human, natural and economic resources.

     Here is the seeming contradiction of the global economy functioning more personally and cooperatively, the way local economies used to flourish. “Moving forward”, as Salomon says...”maintaining our commitments for the development of social and economic productivity...and a vision toward the future.:  (The high altitude coffee of Cooperativa La Trinidad, with Its ‘high cup quality’ (a balance of flavor, body, acidity and aroma) and FairTrade, organic shade grown certification, garners a premium price in the specialty coffee market. 100% Arabica-typica, an ancient variety, it possesses what the French call ‘terroir’, the characteristics of site, soil, weather and elevation that make their way into the flavors of a crop and create a recognizable character. In this case ‘Oaxaca Pluma’ designates the finest coffees of the region, whichare described as clean and lively with bright flavors and high acidity, often with hints of chocolate in the finish. The coffee of La Trinidad is additionally described as having medium body, fine balance and exquisite, subtle flavors. It is these qualities that prompt the buyers of La Trinidad’s beans, Green Mountain Coffee (Vermont), Allegro Coffee (Whole Foods’ brand) and Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, to contract in advance, for the entire annual production.

 jeandesign3@yahoo.com

 

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The Other Campaign in Education

266,000-plus Mexicans learning to read via the Cuban method

 

MEXICO (PL).—More than 266,000 Mexicans are now studying under the innovative "Yes, I can do it!" Cuban literacy program, which is being taught in 10 different locations, according to the Cuban diplomatic mission in that country. The total of those being taught via the method, also known as Alfa-TV, stood at 266,827 on December 13, with 118,537 already graduated 148,290 are enrolled in the courses, which last seven weeks.

Most students are located in the state of Michoacán (more than 62,000) and Oaxaca (37,570), where the greatest concentration of students is located: close to 70,000 and 76,000, respectively.  Supervised by Cuban experts, the program is administered by almost 10,500 facilitators, most of them young college graduates who are voluntarily teaching illiterate adults how to read and write. In addition to the two above-mentioned states, the "I can do it!" program has been implemented in Tabasco, Puebla, Guerrero, the state of México, Veracruz, San Luis Potosí, Nayarit and the Federal District.

In the southwestern state of Oaxaca, where 454,377 people are illiterate, and the total of those who have never completed elementary education amounts exceeds 1.43 million, the campaign was dubbed Margarita Maza de Juárez. According to Cipriano Flores, head of the State Institute for Adult Education (IEEA), this name pays tribute to the wife of former President Benito Juárez, who had to educate her children at home because it was impossible for them to attend school.

Flores noted the importance of the fact that increasingly more women are joining the literacy campaign, given that almost a quarter of a million women in that state are illiterate, representing 66.3% of that state’s illiterate population.

The "I can do it!" program, created three years ago in Cuba, was first implemented in Venezuela, where it helped one million people to learn how to read and write. The program is also being used in other countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Haiti, Honduras, Uruguay and New Zealand.

   

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Quinto Sol

by

Michele Otero

 

It’s not as if you meet him. You remember.

He’s the boy you drowned trying to cross the river.

Villa’s men trailing, so close, the

wind pushing them forward, carrying their dust to your tongue. They would take you

first. He might be crushed under your weight once they threw you on your back and took turns.

If not, they’d shoot holes into that lump strapped to your back. Or they’d machete

through the knot between your breasts and carry him off to a waiting wife with sad eyes.

He’d die slowly before they reached her breast.

You could run it if he weren’t so heavy. You could hide if he would stop crying.

 

The river.

You place a heavy stone on his chest and swaddle him in the reboso, so tightly

he can’t move his arms or legs.

Beneath the spun red cotton, you can’t make out his toes, his fingers.

You cover his black jade eyes last.

He looks into you.

He knows.

He sinks.

You hide, your legs trembling with the vibration of horses’ hooves.

He sinks, cochineal dye bubbling on river like spirits born in the sac.