Harvesting for the Global Market
By Katy CantrellAs fall settles in and temperatures around the United States begin to get cooler, local farmers are harvesting their crops and taking them to the market.
Some of these crops may even appear in our local farmers' markets, where we brush shoulders with our neighbors and shop for a good bargain while supporting our local producers. When you return home and reach for that hot cup of coffee to warm your cold nose, think for a minute about the people who harvested your coffee and brought it to the market. What is your relationship with them?
A Market for Farmers
High in the mountains of Matagalpa, Nicaragua, coffee farmers are preparing for the harvest, just like farmers in your local community. Traditional coffee farmers, like Adrian Martínez, own only a few acres of land and live in isolated mountain villages, far from the main cities where coffee is processed and sold. These small family farmers have little access to market information, and often must sell their coffee to buyers for much less than it is worth.
Adrian Martínez, in orange shirt, participates in a session on identifying coffee beans with defects. Photo by Katy Cantrell/CRS
In 2002, when coffee prices had reached a record low, Nicaraguan coffee farmers took to the streets in protest. Known as the Coffee Crisis, the low prices for coffee made it impossible for farmers to recoup their production costs. The fragile income that supported their families had collapsed. With their families going hungry, many farmers abandoned their land in search of work in the cities.
CRS and our partner, Caritas Matagalpa, offered to help Adrian and other coffee farmers form a cooperative through which they could work to improve the quality of their coffee, receive access to credit and gain access to the fair trade market. The cooperative is called CECOSEMAC and today, Adrian Martínez is its president. The farmers of CECOSEMAC benefit from receiving a fair price, and — as importantly — cultivate long-term relationships with companies in the United States that buy their coffee through the CRS Fair Trade program.
Meeting at the Table
One of the long-term relationships CECOSEMAC has developed is with Cooperative Coffees, a green coffee importing cooperative of 22 community-based coffee roasters in the United States and Canada. CRS partners with 8 of these roasters. This year, Cooperative Coffees held their general meeting in Matagalpa, and invited leaders from coffee cooperatives throughout Latin America to attend.
Orlando Moncada, CRS Nicaragua agriculture program manager, left, speaks with a cooperative worker about how to dry coffee beans. Photo by Katy Cantrell/CRS
Adrian and CRS Nicaragua staff, like Agriculture Program Manager Orlando Moncada, attended the meeting to share the accomplishments of CECOSEMAC and also participate in sessions on how to improve the quality of coffee. Adrian, along with the group of roasters and farmers, circled tables of various coffees, sampling each and evaluating smell and taste. Through the "cupping" process, the hand-picked and -selected beans are combined with the art of a proper roast to make the perfect cup of coffee.
Sharing Their Craft
Adrian was attending the Cooperative Coffees meeting not only in his role as a coffee farmer, but also as a roaster. CECOSEMAC is branching out from selling their coffee on the international market to roasting and selling their coffee domestically. Once international orders are met for their coffee, CECOSEMAC roasts and packages the remaining beans for consumption inside Nicaragua.
CRS has supported the construction of a cupping laboratory at CECOSEMAC so farmers ensure the coffee they sell is of the highest quality. Now that CECOSEMAC is prospering, CRS Nicaragua is turning its attention to other coffee cooperatives in the area to assist them in gaining more control over how and to whom their coffee is sold. As CRS' work with fair trade expands overseas, the CRS Fair Trade program is helping Catholics in the United States connect with fair trade companies that support small farming groups like CECOSEMAC.
As we return home from our local farmers' markets and think about the farmers who grew our pumpkins, do we also consider the farmer who grew our coffee? Through fair trade, we can go beyond supporting local producers and choose to support small family farmers in our global market.
Katy Cantrell is a program advisor for the CRS Fair Trade program. Katy has traveled with CRS to Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali, Mexico, Nicaragua and Uganda.
