Felipe Miza Castro, Coffee Farmer, Member of Manos Campesinas Co-operative, Guatemala
Felize Miza Castro, 48, lives with his wife and three children in the town of St Luca Toliman in south west Guatemala. Felipe is one of 58 coffee farmers in the local co-operative, Asociacion Ijatz. The co-op is one of eleven farmers’ organisations that belong to the ACOPS co-operative which in turn is affiliated to Manos Campesinas (‘workers’ hands’), the umbrella organisation for 1,300 farmers from eight co-ops. Felipe bought his land in 1982 and planted it with coffee trees. Like the other co-op members, his farm is around 0.5 hectares in size with 3,000 coffee trees covering 90% of of his land.
Coffee Crisis
Coffee has become an increasingly precarious livelihood since prices began to slump in 1997 as a result of global oversupply. By October 2001 the price of arabica coffee on the New York exchange had tumbled to 45 cents a pound — the lowest level for 30 years and the lowest ever in real terms. Coffee provides 90% of Felipe’s income but, as a poor, small-scale farmer he doesn’t have the option of expanding production to earn more money. And diversification away from coffee is not an easy option either. He is convinced that the best way to safeguard his family’s future is by securing long-term partnerships with the Fairtrade, organic, and shade grown coffee markets. As Felipe points out:
“The fall in coffee prices has made it really difficult to look after my family and educate my children…The price we get for our coffee from the local trader is unfair; the trader makes more money than we do. It’s not enough to live on — it doesn’t even cover the cost of producing it. Without Fairtrade sales it would be very hard for us to survive and I would have to take my children out of school.”
The Effect of the Co-operative
Small-scale farmers in the region were isolated from markets for many years prior to the creation of the Manos Campesinas co-operative in 1997. The farmers were forced to sell their coffee to coyotes (middlemen) at unsustainably low prices and were left with very little money to show for their efforts. Manos Campesinas helps its members by identifying new market opportunities and managing the processing and export procedures. It gives technical assistance to increase the yield and quality of the crop, provides support for organic conversion, training and diversification, and acquires low interest loans to fund these activities.
The Effect of Fairtrade
Felipe receives more than twice as much for his beans when selling to Fairtrade buyers, and his co-op receives the additional Fairtrade premium of five cents a pound which it has invested in buying a plot of land. They hope Fairtrade sales will help them raise the $18,000 needed to build a coffee mill on the land so that they can process their own coffee. This would almost double the value of their coffee and, vitally, provide many new jobs for local people.
“Fairtrade,” says Felipe, “is giving us the opportunity to survive and help other people in our communities.”
An invaluable by-product of the mill would be the cherry husks that farmers would use to improve the organic compost used to fertilise their land. The additional revenue from Fairtrade has also been used to purchase land to build a storage facility for coffee; repair processing equipment; ensure that the cooperative members’ 2,800 children remain in school, and to install electricity, drainage, and drinking water supply lines.
Fairtrade helped Felipe keep his daughter Cindy in school until graduation. His son Maynor dreams of going to college to study computer technology. Felipe knows this will be tough financially, but says: “I want to send my son to university. If we work hard and sell more coffee to Fairtrade I think I can do it.”