By Erin Schneider, M.ED Farmer, Facilitator & Educator

Coffee and contemplation. The two go cup in hand. Stories are shared, the news of the day, the passing of time, the forecasting of weather. Problems are solved, relationships realized or ended – all in the course of a cup and a conversation. But what about contemplating coffee? What type of plant is it? How is it grown and where? Who are the people and the culture behind, well, our world's culture of coffee? This past winter, I raised funds to help cover travel and resources needed to travel with Just Coffee Cooperative's Grower Delegation to visit La Fundacion entre Mujeres (La Fem) and learn about Fair Trade and organic coffee production. I want to extend a warm thank you to Family Farm Defenders for helping cover costs associated with airfare and in helping me realize my dreams for co-creating the conditions and potential for a women's grower exchange program. FFD's work in supporting farmers learning from other farmers and realizing global food sovereignty is an important emerging story built around creating health, wealth, connection and capacity for growing food and building community. I also wanted to share the story that involves women collectively organizing for their health, the health of the Earth and for their right to a living wage.

Who are the people behind the coffee 'beans'?

There are a total of 1.6 billion rural women in the world -- one quarter of the world's population -- and most of them are farmers – producing between 60-80% of the world's crops on an average of 1 – 2 acres of land (2010 Food and Agriculture Organization). While there are no official statistics on women’s contribution to food production in Nicaragua, there is no lack of data on food insecurity. This is in part due to land access and tenure. Not even 2% of land is owned by women, while the proportion of women heads of household continues to grow. Land reform programs, together with the break up of communal land holdings, have led to the transfer of exclusive land rights to males as heads of households. This also prevents women from gaining access to credit, despite findings that women pay back loans on average 98% of the time (Ceci, 2003). Still efforts to target women in food security and agriculture also have led to an association of women as 'marginalized and vulnerable,' which in turn has prompted the development community to adopt welfare approaches more often than economic development and empowerment. For greatest impact agriculture development strategies must target women populations.

Fortunately, women coffee producers in Nicaragua have a chance to participate in a different model of sustainable agriculture working with an umbrella organization called La Fundacion Entre Mujeres (La Fem). La Fem is a well organized all-women’s NGO in Esteli, Nicaragua that promotes ideological, economic, and political empowerment of rural women through projects such as formal and informal educational programs, reproductive rights, women’s health clinics, domestic violence support, access to land, gender workshops andproduct diversification through organic agriculture trainings. Additionally, La FEM aims to build a model of sustainable economic production based on principles of solidarity and cooperation among women. Experience has shown that while most Nicaraguan women face many obstacles in their struggle for equality, rural women are often at the greatest disadvantage. Through such programs, women from the rural communities are able to participate and be real actors in transforming their own realities, making decisions in the development politics carried out by La FEM. The women can also be both stewards and owners of their own land. “It’s important for women to hold land. It’s hard for them to have a life based on equality without it,” says La FEM Director Diana Martinez. I was struck by this diversity in land holdings when talking with the women of La Fem. Some of the women were able to negotiate separate parcels of land with their husbands to grow their coffee, or were gifted land from their fathers or grandfathers. Few women benefited from the land reforms of the 1980's wherein the land was re-distributed, but it was still mostly to men, and they had to guard the land with machetes during the contra wars. Others told stories of growing weary of their husbands' abuse, “I got tired of being hit, so one day, I hit him (husband) back, packed up my things, and my kids and left him, and found La Fem.” Currently, La Fem, supports over 3,000 women through their programs, with 330 who are part of 12 organic, fair trade coffee cooperatives on about 352 acres (176 manzanas).

So how do you grow this thing called Fair Trade Coffee?

Well, you don't need fancy equipment. In fact most of the women do the work by hand. All you need is a little bit of love, a little soil, a little vision to piece together your farm with the help of the butterflies, bees, and critters, you can help make coffee come to life. It starts with the soil. Organic agriculture's focus is on building soil fertility without the use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers or genetically modified organism. There are inherent social and ecological benefits (and challenges that occur when philosophy meets industry) in managing your farm system organically. It was fitting that we starting our delegation trip to visit La Fem's organic composting facility and plant propagation nursery where I got to experience making boccachi, which is their organic compost. It's a lot like sheet mulching – so I knew I was at home. Specifically, their recipe for sheet mulch or 'rastrojo' represented the following:

•  Carbon layer – coffee chaff 
• Molasses from sugar cane
• Water 
• Decomposed cow manure
• Nitrogen layer – coffee cherries fermented 'juice or honey'
• Charcoal – phosphorous (they also use rice flour or dried corn)

All of the producers make this on their farms as well, but they usually don't have enough materials to mulch all of their plants, so they pool together resources to do this on a larger scale. Everything is still done by hand with at least two people. This practice was integrated into growing and harvesting the coffee plants as well. Once we got grounded in the dirt, we visited some of La Fem's farmers and got to help with the coffee harvest. There are so many tasks involved in making coffee from seed to cup.

When grown in the tropics, coffee is a vigorous small tree that reaches a mature height of 10 – 12 ft, bearing fruit after three to five years for up to 50 – 60 years. The fruit takes about nine months to ripen from green to a deep red (which looks like the shape of a cranberry) called 'cherries'. The cherries contain two seeds, the so-called 'coffee beans', which despite their name are not true beans. Botanically-speaking they are really drupes. The caffeine in coffee is a natural plant defense against herbivory. Unfortunately, this does not extend to the insect world. The coffee borer beetle and coffee leaf miner can devastate crops, so it was important for us to pick all of the 'beans' to prevent any borers showing up post-harvest. It was also important that we left a petiole/stem so the fruit would grow back the following year. The most commonly cultivated coffee species grow best at high elevations in the shade, which makes coffee a natural addition to an agroforestry system. Many of the women's farms integrated multi-year coffee plantings, under the canopy of mango, banana, and avocado trees along steep slopes. Women also grow hibiscus in their annual crop rotations to generate income during the off-season.

The work continues post-harvest where the sorting, pulping, and drying begins in preparation for distribution and export. In 2009 and 2010 the women turned in 356 quintales or 356,000 lbs. of coffee, respectively. Our delegation that morning at Adevida's farm harvested 13, 5 gallon buckets (in general, workers are paid $1.50/bucket of $5.00/day). This year, for La Fem's coffee cooperatives it was 189,000 lbs. This was mostly due to the heavy rains. After lunch we journeyed to the community of El Colorado where the rains took a heavy toll. The mountain swelled, causing a massive landslide. People lost their homes. With the Mayor governing in the village of Pueblo an hour's ride down the mountain, little relief was being given.

We left El Colorado and Los Llanos and journeyed back down the mountain to tour Prodocoop – a cooperative distributor where the coffee 'beans' get ready for export. Prodocoop serves both conventional and organic coffee producing cooperatives, but in all cases honors Fair Trade pricing. In general, Fair Trade embodies the philosophy that everyone needs to have the same standard of living for the same type of work. Small-scale farmers everywhere deserve a decent wage for their hard work. And they deserve it all of the time, not just some of the time.

As I mentioned earlier, the coffee harvest on average was about half as much as the years prior, primarily from the rains. This was true of coffee production worldwide. This year the base price of coffee was $2.50/lb – with an extra 20 cents/lb for organic, and 10 cents/lb more for the Fair Trade premium. This is challenging for cooperatives working in a commodity market. What happens when the commodity market for coffee goes up and over the Fair Trade minimum price structure? Cooperatives are now in competition with the Nestles and the Starbucks of the world who contract 'coyotes' or middle men who will pay the growers cash now for their beans because the growers are cash strapped to pay their workers.

One of the most over-looked dynamics in the quick rise in prices is the role that commodity speculation plays in the market. The shrinking supply of coffee and the rise in coffee prices has attracted types of investors that used to avoid coffee because of its low price and general over-supply. Frankly, there was not enough money in it for investors not involved directly in the coffee business to want to get involved. Now e-traders, 401k-focused investment firms, and other non-traditional players are buying up coffee (and other commodities) and looking down the road at making big bucks, sending futures prices ever-higher. This speculation produces a 'self- fulfilling prophecy' of higher prices as stores of coffee remain low and competition for it runs high.

Transparency in the system is needed now more than ever. The possible results of these new market dynamics are the continued rising of coffee prices or another burst bubble that sends coffee prices falling and leaves farmers once again exposed to over-production and over-investment in their crops. This is what we saw in the late nineties when farmers routinely received 25 cents per pound and Fair Trade really got going.

The result for coffee growers is temporarily better, but perhaps not as good as we would hope for. Individual growers will be tempted to leave the co-op and organic certification and practices. As commodity prices in general rise with speculation, growers will see much of their higher income go to paying for the inflation of basic goods. Cooperatives will continue to have a difficult time securing coffee from members who sell to local buyers for high prices. We're not just seeing this with coffee, we're seeing this with food prices all over the world.

I know times are hard economically, so why is it important for people to buy Fair Trade and Organic Coffee? Well we know the hidden costs of conventional agriculture – in the form of depleted soils, polluted water, and diluted health- paid through via subsidies and tax credits for corporate agribusiness. Fair Trade is a tool to change the global economy and to help equalize the disparity of wealth between countries in the global north and the global south. Just Coffee pays more than the 10 cent Fair trade premium (and they don't tell the growers how to use the money from the premium payments which is what a lot of Fair Trade certifiers/companies will tell their workers). Along those same lines, La Fem, doesn't profit from their producers. All of the coop dues goes back to the women-La Fem serves as a link to buyers and suppliers, to organize projects, and empower women. It is this transparent relationship piece along all levels of the supply chain that makes the process work between La Fem and Just Coffee (Just Coffee has a face-to-face relationship with all their producer cooperatives they work with delegations being venue to support this important outreach). For more information on pricing structure, Fair Trade, and upcoming delegations, have a look around Just Coffee's website.

In journeying to Nicaragua to visit with La Fem 's coffee producing cooperatives, I was most appreciative and impressed by the level of organization and hospitality these women have. Their commitment to working cooperatively alongside their passion for farming and deep connection to the land, I can't help but think comes through each cup of their coffee, Las Diosas, that Just Coffee roasts, and I enjoy each morning. These women work really hard to bring you your coffee!

The coffee and the conversation doesn't stop here...The women growers with La Fem are interested in the idea of co-designing a grower exchange program for Wisconsin Farm women and women growers in Nicaragua. Many challenges and opportunities for rural Wisconsin women in agriculture are analogous to rural Nicaraguan women in agriculture. Some of these are: inability to access sufficient land, resources and/or markets; inability to own land; lack of knowledge in ecology that enhances farm productivity and diversity (design, methods, and risk management); lack of knowledge in basic business/financial skills; lack of access to microcredit and loan programs; a lack of knowledge of temperate (or tropical) conditions and the useful plants and animals that thrive in these conditions; in some cases, lack of opportunity to experience or be exposed to farming; and few opportunities to network and share knowledge of what works well, share resources, and support each other in multiple ways. Two of the women will be traveling to Madison, the end of April, 2011. This is a great opportunity to learn, share and exchange ideas and to continue to shift how the world thinks about women, food security, agriculture and the global marketplace to see women as key agricultural agents of change in rural communities.

Ultimately we hope to co-design a project that will not only help to coordinate and strengthen organic production, and fair trade initiatives, but will also create a new model of innovation that better prepares our growers and our communities as stewards of sustainable businesses and a sustainable future alongside building abundant, food sovereign communities for Wisconsin, Nicaragua and the world.

Erin Schneider co-owns Hilltop Community Farm outside LaValle, Wisconsin where she and her partner, Rob McClure run a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and specialize in uncommon varietals of Midwest fruits. To learn more about their farm, the grower exchange project and their adventures in growing fruit, building community, visit their website: http://www.hilltopcommunityfarm.org or email e.schneider.hilltopfarm@gmail.com.