Economy

I use to be in the coffee business and as a retailer I was one of the lucky few that got to go visit coffee farms in Nicaragua. Traveling with my supplier Counter Culture Coffee, we went to San Ramon, Nicaragua to visit with the organic co-op of small family-owned coffee farms.

The trip was a real eye-opener. We traveled up the Pan American highway from Managua and then took another road to city of Matagalpa. The roads had such huge pot holes that the driver swirved constantly from one side to the other side of the road. Children would shovel dirt into the pot holes and hold out their hands to see if anyone would appreciate the work they have done.

Matagalpa is a city with virtually no tourism and most of the stores there provide basic provisions and tools. Banks were heavily guarded and you were not allowed to wear a hat or use a cell phone inside the bank. Bags, backpacks and such were left with the guard out front.

From Matagalpa we traveled to San Ramon on a road that made the last road look like a well maintained super highway. San Ramon is a small town with a proud people. Originally a mining town it now local hub for coffee farmers. Sunday is the big day and after church, everyone enjoys specially made tamales wrapped in a banana leaf that takes 6-hours to cook in mud and brick ovens. There is a local legend that a golden snake guards the mine hidden under the church.

From San Ramon we traveled on a dirt road to Yucul. Yucul is at best a small store, school and a few homes made of wood with corrugated roofing and dirt floors. We then turn to go up higher in the mountain to where we were staying at Finca Esperanza Verde. The road looked more like a dried up stoney creek bed then a road. On the way up the mountain, coffee-pickers were working their way down the road from a day’s work. At one point about a mile from the Esperanza we got stuck and had to push the vehicle out of the mud. We blew a tire and waited for the driver to fix the flat. I’m amazed the vehicle didn’t shake apart from the trip!

Finca Esperanza Verde is a non-profit organic coffee farm that is part of the Durham, NC sister communities. A beautiful place with no power, no cell phone, no telephone, nothing except the beautiful valley below and the abundant crystal sharp stars at night.

We visited many of the small family farms the next day. Many of these farms are only several acres in size and are primarily coffee farms with some cocoa and in one case passion fruit. The passion fruit was planted when Ocean Spray was thinking about opening a plant down in San Ramon. So the farmers eagerly planted passion fruit. Ocean Spray never opened the plant and many of the farmers replaced their passion fruit crop with beans or wheat.

The primary source of income for these farmers is the coffee. One of the first farmers we visited took 10% of his earnings the previous year to build a wet mill on the farm. The wet mill allows the farmer to separate good coffee cherries from tainted coffee cherries and to process the cherries to get the coffee beans. It is amazing that this farmer, who annually receives about $6,000 a year from coffee, spends $600 to build a mill that will reduce the amount of coffee produced. The reason of course is higher grade coffee commands a higher price. The dedication to organic, sustainability and quality-driven farming practices was impressive.

Many of the farmers were very dedicated to organic coffee for many reasons. The number one reason was health. One farmer said he switched after he fell ill handling fertilizers and pesticides. With no real health care, he was sick for over a month. Most of these families live in wood shacks that has divided room and dirt floors. One farmer invited us in his home to talk about coffee. He fed us bowls of freshly cut papaya. The other room was for sleeping. On the divided wall were photos, posters, and cut-outs. One photo was of his wedding picture. One poster was of Pedro Pablo that was running for regional political office. Other posters were religious and one cut out just choked me up. Here were on a remote mountain, covered in mud, eating papaya in a 2-room house on a dirt floor and there was cut-out of magazine ad on the wall. The photo was a hotel room with perfectly made bed with lamps and framed pictures on a manicured white carpet. It upsetting to me because it was very unlikely he would ever have the chance to enjoy something we in U.S. take for granted.

The farmers would separate the coffee beans from the cherries and then place the beans on drying screens where they would separate flawed beans from the good beans. They would dry the beans for the next week down to about 50% moisture content. The beans would then be sacked and many of the farmers would carry the 100 lb sacks down the mountain to Yucul to be transported to Sol Cafe dry mill processor.

Sol Cafe is one of the mills managed by parent Cecocafen. The beans enter the mill and are either handled by the organic receiver or non-organic receiver. The beans are weighed, sampled for quality, checked for moisture content and tagged with the farmers name. The organic beans are spread out on a special concrete patio for drying. The try to dry to beans down to 12-14% moisture content. The non-organic beans are dried on plastic sheets in the large field owned by the mill. There is one worker that watches the weather for rain. If a rain cloud (almost daily) starts to move in the area, he rings a loud bell and the workers quickly sweep the organic coffee in a pile and cover each pile with tarp. Each farmer’s crop is kept separate from other crops.

The coffee is cupped for quality by the mill and final processing of the coffee for shipping sorts the coffee for size, density and flaws are removed by room full of women sitting shoulder to shoulder while the coffee whizzes by on a conveyor belt.

We had an opportunity to meed the co-op and uca. The Uca is a kind of a meta-group that provides money lending, and technical resources to many co-ops. Cecocafen markets the coffee and writes the contracts and collects the money. The money is then sent to the Uca and then the co-ops and eventually the farmers. If the contract is written with Trans Fair USA then the coffee can get that neat little “Fair Trade Certified” sticker on the bag. Fair trade prices in early 2007 were $1.21 for non-organic and $1.41 for organic coffee. When we met with the co-op it was clear that the 20-cent difference was not enough premium for organic coffee. Many farmers cannot produce enough compost to fertilize their crop and have to buy organic fertilizer. Organic fertilizer costs a lot more then non-organic. We agreed to pay more then the contracted price with bonuses for high scoring coffee.

So now the rub. One year later we find that many of the farmers never got paid for 2007. Was the coffee “Fair Trade Certified”? Yep. It is upsetting to me that these farmers put a lot of effort and somewhere the money did not make it. Communication in Nicaragua is almost always word of mouth and there was some discussion that the Uca decided to payoff farmer loans rather then pay the farmers. With all the middle-men between the Fair Trade contract and the farmer, something is wrong. Counter Culture Coffee is now working on an agreement to buy the coffee direct from the farmers and finding a new dry mill processor the farmers can process their coffee. I believe you will see something of “Direct Trade” brand of coffee similar to what Intelligensia Coffee Roasters has been doing. Geoff Watts sent a long email on the subject to blogger GreenLaGirl.com