Small-scale farmer coffee co-operative in solidarity with landless farm workers

By Phyllis Robinson, Equal Exchange

I would like to share a highly inspiring story from Nicaragua of solidarity between unemployed farm workers and a small-scale farmer co-operative that Equal  Exchange has partnered with for over 15 years.

In the early 1990’s when the coffee crisis was at its most severe, conventional coffee companies were paying farmers as little as 45 cents/pound.  With costs of production about twice that high, plantations throughout Nicaragua were going bankrupt.  Landowners abandoned their estates and those who suffered the worst were the  scores of thousands of coffee pickers who had nowhere to work and no way to feed their families.

Malnutrition throughout the country was high and 14 children died in 2002, literally from lack of food.  The Farmworkers Association (ATC) organized a march from Matagalpa 100 miles to the capital, Managua, to demand a solution from the government.  For several long weeks, the workers marched under the hot sun, camping along the road and occasionally stopping traffic on the Pan American highway.  They refused to quit until the government agreed to negotiate solutions to their demands for food, work, credit and land.

Cecocafen, Equal Exchange’s long-term co-operative trading partner faced difficulties as well but was in a slightly better position to navigate the crisis: although very poor, each of the 1900 members had 3 – 5 acres of land, were joint owners of their business, and as a Fair Trade co-operative, were being paid a $1.41/pound for organic coffee for the 30% of their coffee that they managed to sell to the Fair Trade market.

During the long march to Managua, Cecocafen supported the unemployed farm workers with food, shelter and logistics.  Seen as protagonists in the campesino movement, Cecocafen was invited to participate in the negotiations with the government.  Eventually agreements were reached, called the Las Tunas Accords, for short-term jobs and food for the workers and a longer-term strategy for credit and land.

A solidarity organization in Europe agreed to donate money for the creation of a revolving loan fund for the workers to borrow low-interest money to buy land.  Cecocafen was seen as the only organization in Matagalpa with the credibility and proven track to administer this fund.  So Cecocafen agreed to serve as fiscal agent and administrator to help the farmworkers purchase their own land.  Once they had titles, they would form co-operatives and with Cecocafen’s help, begin to access the Fair Trade market – the only hope for coffee farmers in Nicaragua.