Nicaragua's Coffee Crisis Finally Addressed
How low does one have to fall to "hit bottom?" How long does it take before someone intervenes? In the case of coffee growers in Nicaragua, the fall was long, slow, and precipitous. Growers, their workers and their families in Nicaragua's coffee regions, endured the worst of conditions for several seasons before their government found a way to respond. In fact, before help finally arrived last September, children had died because their families had lived for months at starvation levels and many acres of delicate coffee plants had suffered serious neglect. Additionally, over 600 farms in northern Nicaragua were days from complete financial failure. *Finally the Nicaraguan government agreed to a program of aid to rescue an agricultural resource they had neglected in hard times in spite of it having been, for many decades, the country’s largest agricultural export.
Aid included bank credit which was made available for the important preparatory work before the November harvest began. During years of deflated prices, Nicaragua's private and loosely regulated banks had been a part of the problem. Bankers had mercilessly charged high interest rates and maintained unyielding payback requirements for loans essential to getting crops harvested and coffee plants maintained. At the same time Nicaragua's President Aleman was creating a hidden treasure for himself and his family from diverted public funds and a decade of "structural adjustments" required by international loan agencies (IMF and the World Bank), to whom Nicaragua is deeply indebted, and who had prohibited government loans to the agricultural sector.
Along with bank credit, government funds were promised to underwrite 5,000 jobs for the labor intensive harvest. The aid would include a "basic basket" of foodstuffs and a minimum salary of $1.50 per day. Land grants were also promised. (Many workers own no land and with few alternative employment opportunities they struggle to find a way to feed their families for the several months each year between harvests.) Of course, a history of empty promises means that most workers, as the NicaNet Hotline reports, are not confident of actually owning land, neither sooner nor later.
Producers Are Getting Creative
Heather Dolphin, Project Minnesota/Leon's coordinator in León, sent us a report on a recent visit to one of Nicaragua's coffee cooperatives located in the northern region, adjacent to the Department of Leon. The cooperative, CECOCAFEN, is one of several in the country attempting to recapture profitability by adjusting to intense competition in the world market. CECOCAFEN's mission is to consolidate the efforts of small coffee producers in order to promote very high quality coffee, fine-tune production methods on the farms, and search out new markets for what they expect can become the finest of Nicaraguan coffees.
Heather writes, "CECOCAFEN is a pivotal coffee cooperative located near Matagalpa, a growing region north of Leon where lush, volcanic-enriched soil has long sustained agriculture, work, and sustenance for thousands of rural families. Especially in the low mountains and their foothills, excellent, shade-grown coffee has been produced for decades on labor-intensive, mostly small, farms. Thanks to Hamilton Riveras, who manages SolCafe, Inc., a coffee processing company allied with the CECOCAFEN cooperative, I enjoyed learning firsthand about the cooperative's creative measures to recapture a place for Nicaragua's fine coffee in the world market."
Riveras explained that since coffee is a delicate crop requiring a lot of care and attention, "small producers who can keep their efforts in the family are at an advantage. They are able to monitor and harvest coffee beans when they are perfectly ripe." He points out that workers who are family members feel greater ownership of their products. They do much of the farm labor by hand and with greater care and attention. Riveras said he has found that once a producer has to hire a number of workers from outside the family, quality in coffee harvesting and production goes down.
SolCafe's role is to process coffee beans delivered to them by small producers in their areas. SolCafe's workers transform the raw husked beans into select shining beans, ready for later roasting, which are then bagged for export. Currently SolCafe prepares coffee shipments for various markets including the organic and fair trade specialty markets as well as for the conventional market. As more farmers can convert to methods which support only premium coffee, SolCafe expects to be able to avoid the price exploitive conventional market, Riveras confides.
The mission of SolCafe is to export highest quality beans by improving the work methods and the social condition of its members. The company provides quality control training to individual small producers and promotes the success of family-based operations by helping ensure families some social benefits that promote their ability to continue working. For example, SolCafe provides a revolving savings fund for women and will soon initiate a pilot program of scholarships for student workers in exchange for community service.
Besides careful attention to hand picking beans during harvest, quality is also promoted through careful and slower processing, Riveras says. SolCafe uses only sun-drying methods, he explains, which allows the company to avoid machine drying, thus giving better assurance that the natural flavor of the bean will be preserved and the potential for bitter tasting coffee avoided. The beans are husked mechanically but then hand-sorted, maintaining small-scale, human attention to detail. The use of labor intensive methods not only ensures quality coffee, it is an investment in a more community-wide labor force, which incidentally, in the processing phase, is mostly female.
Marketing Alternatives: Fair Trade, Organic, Personal
As the impact of cooperative-grown coffee increases in Nicaragua, the importance of the community organizing efforts which help to create these cooperatives, becomes more obvious. Clearly these combined efforts allow small producers a greater chance to gain more control over the prices received for their crops. Alternative markets, especially for fair trade and organic coffees, are their best bet.
Fair Trade Certification is a method growers use to cut out the middlemen, buyers for the conventional stock exchange, who seek out the lowest priced coffees. Such coffees are usually harvested at abusive wages for workers and often are grown in the sun, producing more beans but which are of lower quality and grown at the expense of the environment. These middlemen can then make a sale at a "fair price" for themselves. By offering the highest quality product possible, cooperatives like CECOCAFEN can meet the demands for the quality and careful production required in order to obtain Fair Trade Certification and thereby assure themselves a stable and fair price.
The many requirements to earn Fair Trade Certification mean a higher price must be paid by roasters but the payoff is high quality and what has become a valuable marketing tool. In growing numbers, European, Asian, and North American consumers are willing to pay for the quality brew these beans provide. Also growing in number are roasters willing to join the Fair Trade movement. A movement spurred by millions of conscientious consumers demanding their coffee be produced in an environmentally friendly manner and purchased at prices which are fair to growers and their workers.
The growing demand for organically produced foods is also influencing the coffee world. Organic coffee usually commands the highest price but growing organic coffee is a challenge to producers. CECOCAFEN, Riveras says, is nevertheless making some progress in promoting their organic program to its members. The challenge is one of faith, especially to farmers on the edge of survival. Though a higher price for organic coffee is highly likely, there is a three to four year delay in achieving profits. Even then, since quantity of bean plant production is necessarily reduced in order to avoid chemicals in the soil, efficiency and excellent management is necessary. Generally, it takes up to four years for the soil to be purged of toxins. During that time, the beans produced can only be marketed for conventional, very low, prices.
Riveras emphasizes how the risk and delay of switching to organic will, over time, help these producers gain not only higher profits but also environmental protection for their forests, their water supply, their families, and farm animals. Additionally, he asserts, over time and with care, organically prepared soil and coffee production becomes cheaper than conventional methods. CECOCAFEN is using such arguments to slowly win over more small producers.