Small Loan Profits Coffee Crop, Growers

By Hilda M. Perez

In a three-room, lime-green building in Agua Prieta-Sonora, Mexico, in a residential area, the robust aroma of recently roasted coffee permeates the air as soon as the red wrought-iron doors are opened. Inside, Pedro Maldonado Lopez tends a high-powered roaster chamber, which can roast 40 pounds of coffee in 15 minutes.

Café Justo (Just Coffee) is a Mexico-based, grower-owned, organic-estate coffee cooperative. The cooperative ships almost 99 percent of its product to the United States—primarily to churches—for sale and consumption. Six years ago, the business received a low-interest loan from Frontera de Cristo (Border of Christ) as part of a microfinance project; sales for the coffee have continued to grow since.

Catholic Relief Services Mexico has supported the cooperative with technical advice and a second loan for the purchase and installation of a new roaster in Tijuana. This support empowers Café Justo to operate an evolving, integrated business structure; members own the growing, roasting, packing and exporting components of the business.

Daniel Cifuentes, 43, director of production and co-owner, oversees six other employees. Before coming to Café Justo, he used to work in a maquiladora (factory) making seatbelts and harnesses for industrial use. "With our own roaster, we can see that we get a just price for our product, without anyone in the middle, and it can be a direct operation from grower to client," says Daniel.

Café Justo roasts and packages about 200 pounds of coffee a day. The $40,000 roaster chamber is the latest addition to the growing operation, which started in 2002 with one $10,000 roaster that could produce 12 pounds in 10 minutes.

Coffee Cooperative

Miles away in the small village of Salvador Urbina, Felix Alberto Ventura, 23, maneuvers his way through the plantation picking robusta coffee beans for his boss, Eri Cifuentes. Daniel's older brother, Eri, 56, is a third-generation coffee farmer and runs the plantation. He leads a cooperative that allows the local coffee growers to get fair market price while emphasizing quality beans and organic methods.

Salvador Urbina, a village of about 5,000 people, is nestled on the side of Tacaná, an active volcano located near the city of Tapachula in the state of Chiapas, in the southernmost part of Mexico. Coffee is the major cash crop and profits from coffee sales are the community's driving economic force. Unfair pricing and a fragile economy had caused a lot of farmers to abandon coffee and its production, and many village people have left Salvador Urbina to find better-paying jobs on the U.S.-Mexico border.

"Prices have been a major problem in the last years. Too-low prices have led us to do this cooperative. And that is hard, too, because the cash flow is slow, since we get paid in small amounts, which is why other farmers are hesitant to join us. But I can wait to get paid because in 2002 we were getting $35.19 for 115 pounds of coffee. Today, we are getting $125.80 for the same amount and that is very just," explains Eri.

Eri, the eldest of 13, was born on a coffee plantation in Salvador Urbina and learned to harvest coffee from his father Daniel. Eri was a 5-year-old boy on his first trip to the plantation. He remembers fondly how his father would look back and smile at him as he got lost among the plants, traveled on horseback and hung onto a pile of leña (firewood). For Eri the plantation was an instant curiosity that grew into a passion.

"I'm in love with the coffee plant. You always have to pay attention to it and it is no different than a child or a pet that needs nutrition, care and love. The rain and sun are our friends, but too much water can rot the crop and not allow the proper time for drying. You also have to watch that it has some shade and you must constantly clean the soil."

Even though the harvesting season typically lasts only three months, from September to November, growing coffee is a year-round endeavor.

Eri and his brother feel that they are doing everything they can to maintain their business and farming practices by using technology, branding and targeting specific markets to their advantage.

"Es duro. It is hard," says Eri. "But much like the robusta coffee plant, we are strong, determined and we grow."

Hilda M. Perez is an award-winning photographer based in Orlando, Florida. Hilda recently traveled to Mexico and Honduras with CRS.