A FIRSTHAND LOOK AT FAIR TRADE IN GUATEMALA By Ramsey Brous Co-owner, Ithaca Bakery/Collegetown Bagels This story first appeared in our SIDE DISH newsletter for Spring of 2003. Eight days in Guatemala? In the middle of a hard winter in upstate New York? I couldn't resist, even though it promised to be much more working trip than vacation. When I was invited, Equal Exchange, our coffee supplier at the Ithaca Bakery and Collegetown Bagels, billed the trip as educational. In reality, the busy pace of our eight-day journey to the coffee-lands kept us going all day and left us exhausted by nightfall. But we learned much about coffee, from tree to unprocessed bean to mill, and eventually to the giant export house in Guatemala City, where the final sorting and processing are carried out before the beans are trucked to port for shipping to their final destination. If they're bound for Japan, California or other points west, they're trucked to the country's Pacific port. Heading to Europe or the east coast of the United States, they are trucked to the Atlantic port, a six-hour journey. But I also learned a great deal about the community that produces the beans that satisfy our daily need for caffeine and the role of the Fair Trade market that guarantees minimum prices to farmer cooperatives in many countries around the world. In many ways, the 130-year history of coffee in Guatemala is the history of the people. As the country's largest export crop by far, coffee and the market for it have driven economic development in good times and bad. Right now, things are not so good. Green (unroasted) coffee beans sell at about 60¢ per pound on the international market, after a fall to 49¢ in 2001. Since the cost of production is closer to 85¢ a pound, producers are taking a big hit. What this means for the average Guatemalan, we were going to find out. I've been to Central America twice so our arrival at the airport was as I'd anticipated. Crowds were massed together shoulder to shoulder to see the passengers leaving the terminal. On the ride to the hotel, we passed familiar multi-national names - Shell, Domino's, Papa John's, Sherwin-Williams. Driving is much more fluid in Guatemala. The painted lanes are taken more as mild suggestions than strict regulations. Madriel, the driver for our party of nine during the entire week, skillfully navigated the busy, obstacle-strewn roadways, gliding to the left and right, sometimes as needed and sometimes just for style. Welcome to the "developing world." Our hotel, Casa San Jose, was on a dark, somewhat narrow street close to the center of the city. With hot and cold running water, a cute lobby and dining room, it was nothing luxurious, but comfortable enough. As expected, the nighttime temperature dipped down to the fifties, inside and out, so my travel blanket came in very handy. On Day One, we were off and running as breakfast gave way to our first meeting. Ruth Taylor joined us to speak about the Agrarian Platform. Beginning in 1871, the government determined that Guatemala would devote itself to coffee production on a grand scale, and laws affecting land use and labor were passed to facilitate the growth of the industry. The titles on land being used for anything besides coffee growing could be shifted to large finca (plantation) owners, mostly European immigrants, who set out to replant with the new crop of choice, coffee. Lands belonging to indigenous people, to the church and the state were turned over to the coffee barons in an effort to bring Guatemala into the modern age. Labor laws allowed the coffee growers to send trucks into the hills to round up, at gunpoint, "idle workers" for the fincas. From some perspectives, this feudal system operated well for many years, but it was turned on its head two years ago when the international coffee market collapsed. Families who had lived as stewards of the land for generations, although on the barest minimum of food, shelter and clothing, were being evicted from the shacks that sustained them. The finca owners stopped providing much more than tortillas and salt or, in many cases, any food at all. The temporary workers who had traditionally come down from the mountains to labor seasonally at the fincas had it worse. As crops went unpicked, landowners had no need of extra hands for the harvest. In the wake of this situation, starvation has become commonplace, illegal immigration has soared, splitting up families in the process, and the number one source of foreign exchange has switched from coffee to money sent back by relatives fortunate enough to have found paying jobs in the United States. It has become clear that, without restructuring the nature of land-ownership, the rise and fall of the coffee market will continue to play havoc in the lives of the peasants who make up the vast majority of the population. The president gave in and declared a national emergency in December, but solutions have failed to follow. Even the first, most basic goal of distributing rice, beans and cooking oil has failed to be fully met. The "platform" drawn up by three organizations representing campesinos (farm workers) and human rights organizations, seeks to change the economic structure by redistribution of land, aid to farmers for diversifying crops, enforcement of labor and income tax laws, promotion of eco-tourism, greater access to export licenses, and other structural changes. In the immediate future, these groups are looking to provide food aid and emergency medical care to help people survive the current crisis. Following the morning meeting, a short walk brought us to the main plaza in the center of the city, a hive of activity, with comedians, musicians and other entertainers as well as people selling scarves, blankets, shirts, and hats. We were the only obvious foreigners anywhere in sight, and I wondered who else was expected to buy their wares. Here on the plaza, an eternal flame burned for those lost in fighting a 36-year war against the government that had ended with a peace accord in 1996. In front of the cathedral, a wrought iron fence with marble pillars bore some of the names of the more than 200,000 people who had been lost in the war. They were listed by village, in many cases, grouped together as they had been massacred, in an efficient scorched-earth strategy aimed at destroying whole communities of "subversive" people. We next met with the leaders of the National Indigenous and Campesino Coalition (CONIC). With pictures of Che Guevera on their office wall, these two gentle men were the perfect revolutionaries turned politicians. They had drafted proposal after proposal of finely crafted legislation, which had been painstakingly presented to the highest government officials for action. Eloquent and passionate, they explained to us their Mayan heritage and some of the ways their culture differs from that of the Europeans. Their spiritual practices, calendar and shared history of oppression constitute the common bonds that brought them together to develop a nationwide organization of poor, working-class, indigenous people that forms a very powerful political movement. Their office sits next to a park memorializing Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedara who was bludgeoned to death a few years ago after releasing a scathing report of human rights atrocities perpetrated by government forces. Recently, violent attacks have increased on private citizens, judges and others involved in uncovering the truth of the officially sanctioned violence in Guatemala's past. As we sat and talked, I couldn't help wondering whether the security forces would soon be paying a visit That night we met with Annie Byrd of Rights Action who gave us the gory and disturbing background of the 36-year war and its associated human rights abuses. With the goal of destroying any opposition, the government had developed strategies for gaining control of rural populations through threats, intimidation, torture and outright slaughter. Whether prompted by desperately needed cash or outright force, many young men had turned against family and friends, joining the civil patrols as villages were torched and victims buried in mass graves. Today, as these graves are being exhumed, those leading the search are still facing threats and assassinations at the hands of former military and paramilitary officials. It was hard to sleep after that late-night wrap-up and yet it was hard to stay awake. Unable to concentrate on a book, I closed my eyes until I finally fell asleep. Day by day, we delved deeper and deeper into Guatemalan history and its current politics. Heading westward, we moved on from the city to meetings with church officials, co-op leaders and political organizers that brought us always closer, geographically and intellectually, to the coffee-growing region. Finally it was time to head up to the mountains where we would visit a coffee-growing cooperative, stay with a family and alongside our hosts, pick and process coffee beans. At one stop, unfortunately, my backpack, with all my clothes, was stolen from the roof of our van. But we made a quick stop at the market in Malacatan, a city perhaps best known for supplying kidnapped children to the U.S. adoption market. For about ten dollars, I was able to purchase a whole new wardrobe. I couldn't find any pants that fit, although the talented young saleswoman had me half-sold on a very nice pair that never would have made it around my waist. At lunch that day, we found out that heading up the mountain road in our van would be impossible, so we waited for two four-wheel-drive trucks. An economy-size Nissan truck showed up and we waited for another, as it became clear that this one vehicle would be our transportation up the mountain. In the end, it hauled the nine of us with all of our luggage plus eight Guatemalans up the "road" to an elevation of some 4,500 feet, the heart of the highest quality coffee-growing country. Up and up we went and up, raising dust and kicking up rocks, occasionally passing an even more heavily overloaded truck coming down. After about two hours, we arrived to a warm welcome from the cooperative's coffee-growers. We ate a delicious home-cooked meal and went to bed in the bunkhouse, all of us in one room. I was in the end bunk and through my window, I could see the shimmering lights of Mexican cities across the border at the foot of the mountains. The next morning, I awoke at about six to a beautiful sunrise over Mount Tajulmulco, a volcano, at roughly 14,000 feet the highest point in Central America. Clouds formed a ring around its upper tier. A narrow cleared swath running up another volcano nearby marked the border of Mexico. Around us, the village was quiet except for the distant roar of some kind of tractor working invisibly in the forest across the valley. The co-op, Apecaformm (Associación de Pequeños Carecultores Orgánicos Maya-Mames), was founded in 1992, legalized in 1998, and has 366 members. Initially formed to provide economic and physical security to the people of the surrounding villages, the organization has become a way for the individual growers to come together, to produce better coffee through training programs and market their product as a unit, getting them higher prices and a better standard of living than many in the industry. Made up of 19 communities, the co-op maintains five centers for meeting purposes and for the collection of the harvest. With three promoters, or trainers, for each of the five centers, their commitment to quality is phenomenal, turning out all super-hard bean coffee (the best), all of it certified organic. They sell their crop almost entirely in the Fair Trade market, which guarantees them $1.41 per pound as others struggle to get 50 or 60 cents. After learning some of the history and operation of the co-op, my group of four headed out to our home stay. Our hosts were to be Audelio and Margarita Ramos Chavez and their three daughters. As vice-president of the co-op, Audelio takes an active role in the politics and organization. He grew up in the house just behind his own, where his mother and extended family still lives. To reach the house, we hiked for 15 minutes through the woods along a trail from a road that has not been passable by car in many years. In the United States, we might call Audelio's house a shack. The beds are wooden platforms and there are no windows, but his family lives comfortably in its two rooms, with dirt floors, no electricity and no indoor plumbing. Their final harvest for the season, nine quintals (one-hundred-pound sacks) of beans, shares the bedroom with all their belongings, including the prized, foot-powered Singer sewing machine. The kitchen, detached from the bedroom, is about ten by ten and contains a firebox with a steel-plate cook top. It was on this steel plate that it all happened: tortillas were made, coffee was roasted, soup was cooked, and coffee was brewed. In honor of our visit, the rooster was sacrificed and cooked into a delicious soup. Judging by the provisions in the kitchen, I can only imagine that most nights, dinner is only tortillas and beans. It was getting toward mid-afternoon but after a quick snack of hot corn water, we began picking the coffee cherries. Within the cherry are the magical coffee beans we treasure. For this final pick of the season, we were taking all the cherries, regardless of ripeness. Normally, only the ripe ones would be picked. We strapped on small plastic laundry baskets so they hung in front of us, and then headed into the woods. Quickly, we learned that the most effective method (for a right-handed person) is to pull down a branch with the left hand and pick with the right, dropping the cherries into the waist-mounted basket. While I was never even a tenth as fast as the Guatemalans picking coffee, I was mostly able to get the cherries picked with what seemed to be the proper up-and-out motion to preserve the fragile stems for next year's crop. I was unaware that, for the first time in our visit, the biting bugs had come out in force and before I could get my Ultra Off repellent on, I was fairly well covered with tiny bites. They didn't buzz like mosquitoes and the bites didn't itch much, but something seemed to elicit concern amongst my friends. Without a mirror, I was left to imagine my appearance. After picking, our next step was to sort the harvest by ripeness, taking out all of the under- and over-ripe fruits and then "wet-processing" the perfectly ripe cherries. As the cherries run through a crude, hand-cranked mill with water running over it (hence the "wet" process), the skin and flesh are separated from the seed or bean. After filtering it all through a screen, the beans, now in "parchment" state, are fermented (soaked) in water for some hours before going to wood drying racks where they are turned every half hour as long as the sun is out. Finally, after 15 days of turning in the parchment form, the beans are bagged up until the farmers are ready to carry the sacks on their backs down the mountain. Then the coffee is loaded into waiting trucks which carry it to a storage warehouse in Malacatan, at the foot of the mountain. From there, a truck from the exporting house brings it to Guatemala City for final "dry-processing," rebagging and shipment. My night on the wooden bed at Audelio and Margarite's house, with temperatures I'd guess were in the upper 40s and one of my traveling companions stealing all the covers, left me with little sleep. In the morning after a long, stunningly beautiful hike back to the co-op through woods and over streams, we all met for breakfast, final meetings with the co-op members and tearful heartfelt goodbyes. Then we all climbed back into the Nissan pickup and headed down the mountain. Covered with dust, we ended up in Malacatan just in time for a 45-minute deluge of rain so heavy it brought the entire town to a halt. Huddling in a doorway, we waited for Madriel, our van-driver, to find us and eventually headed out along the coast road through what is called the Boca Costa, a fertile growing region with cotton, sugar cane and cattle. The next day, as we sat at our hotel on the shore of Lake Atitlan for our one day of relaxation, it all seemed a bit strange. We had explored this "land of eternal spring" - its incredible topography, struggling people, horrible secrets... Now we were sitting in lounge chairs, drinking beer and overlooking a stunning lake with two volcanoes in the background. Most people who come to vacation in this little piece of paradise, called the Arca de Noe in Santa Cruz La Laguna, probably never have any idea of the suffering just around the bend. After all we had seen and learned, it was painfully clear that while the coffee producers selling in the Fair Trade arena are doing all right, surviving but far from wealthy, the vast majority of Guatemalans are barely making it. After a respite of slightly less than 24 hours, we headed back to Guatemala City to meet with the export house, its offices secured behind a high fence and razor wire. Our host at this Spanish-owned operation (with $58 million in annual sales, the smallest of the export houses) was well dressed in Ralph Lauren. After a formal cupping with the master cupper, we made our way over to the mill and warehouse. There we saw sacks of coffee stacked in endless neat rows - 500 sacks long by 100 sacks wide by 20 sacks high - all placed by human hands. At the center of the operation was the dry-milling and sorting equipment. As the machinery ran, the noise was so loud, you could not hear a person two feet away yelling at full blast. While no ear protection was available, we endured our five-minute stay. The plant workers were not so lucky. In the ear-splitting din, they poured bag after bag into the hopper as the machinery milled the beans, then sorted them by weight, size and density. Each bean ended up in the proper sack with a specific grade and destination. Re-bagged into 150-pound sacks after processing, they were quickly loaded by hand, one man to a bag, into containers for shipping out to destinations around the globe. Most Guatemalans are too poor to drink coffee, even the inferior beans, and drink ground corn instead. The next day we were off, each of us to our own destination, to our houses, TVs, our beds, our cars and our multitude of conveniences. We had been asked, many of us, during our travels how Guatemalans could get to the United States and how we could help. While we knew that immigration was not the ultimate answer, it was difficult to say what was, and we certainly felt the privilege of that airplane ticket home. Back to Top