Members of Just Coffee, Josh and Julia, were given the opportunity to join Cooperative Coffees to partake in a Catholic Relief Services  Fair Trade workshop with small producers from around El Salvador.  The purpose of this Café Lifelihoods conference was to bring small farmers together, capacitate them on the coffee chain, finding better ways to market their coffee, and managing risks. Over the course of this five day conference, each producer shared their experience of coffee farming in the conventional market and brainstormed strategies to improve the way they sell coffee in hopes to bring more income for their families and their communities.

From the sixteen small producer groups we met with, only four of them exported coffee to the international market.  The rest of the cooperatives sold their coffee in cherry form to middle men who offered them a very low price for their product.  Without access to their own processing facilities, knowledge of other alternatives, or capital, many small scale producers become vulnerable to private processing facilities who take advantage of their work, and leave producers with very little to show for all they have done. Most producers had little control over the price they would sell their coffee at, since they simply sell to the middlemen for lack of access to better markets. 

Few of them felt that they received a fair price for their product and many of them had never heard of alternative markets, such as fair trade. So, part of the workshop involved playing a coffee chain game. Several producers participated, each one playing a different role.  We decided it would be much easier to use the fair trade chain, rather then the conventional once (since the conventional chain had far too many actors, and we were slightly pressed for time…). Beginning with a $10 bag of Just Coffee, the consumer handed his money over to the food cooperative, who took her portion out of those ten dollars. The food cooperative then paid the roaster, who then paid the importer, who paid the export processor, who then paid the producer cooperative, who then paid the producer.  This exercise showed producers what happens to their coffee once it leaves their hands, since many producers had no idea where it ended up once they turned it in to the processor. Not only did it show where coffee traveled, but it also gave them an idea of why consumers pay so much for a bag of coffee, and how much money gets taken out along the way. It was helpful for all of us to understand why the producer is left with so little in the end.

This conference was also focused on managing risks involved in coffee production, and hearing their stories, it is clear that there are several. There are so many steps in the long production chain that must be carefully monitored to bring consumers a quality cup of coffee.  Beginning with the agricultural side, producers must carefully maintain their plots, applying organic (or non-organic) fertilizers, manage pests, harvest on time, and transport their coffee to the processor on time. From there, quality control must be maintained once the coffee reaches the processing facility.  After the processor or exporter, it is sent on a ship to the importer in New York before it reaches Just Coffee World Headquarters. Finally, coffee must be roasted, transported, and prepared well to make all of these steps worthwhile. Much of these risks associated with processing and handling of the coffee are out of the hands of the producers.

Other major risks included lack of information about quality requirements in the international market (including organic certifications), little access to prefinancing in order to maintain their farms and prepare them for a quality harvest, and especially lack of organization or alliances with other producers.  The smaller, more isolated producers are, the harder it is for them to be noticed, to carry out a business plan or strategy to sell their product, and thus the easier it is for larger corporations to take advantage of them. Fluctuating or low international prices and lack of consistent buyers are also major risks that coffee producers face.

However, one of the most serious risks that producers mentioned was climate change.  Last year, once the coffee had ripened on the tree, Hurricane Ida hit and knocked the ripe cherries on the ground. Many producers lost over half of their production and others lost whole parcels of land as it was washed away with the rain. There are no programs to protect producers from these kinds of disasters. Many are saying that each year the rainy winters become worse and worse and because of this, they can never be certain of a good harvest. Climate change and increased rains is one risk that is incredibly difficult to manage. “Since this is a global issue, there is not much we can do here on the short term. We are the ones that are seriously affected by it.” the producers told us.

At the end of the conference, after discussing risks that most producers faced, and learning about the other end of the coffee chain, producers brainstormed short term and long termgoals for making change. Included in the short term goals were the following:improve quality through workshops and exchanges, look for new clients, create alliances between producers and host buyers in communities, process coffee in pergamino, begin educating producers on importance of organic certification, understand mechanisms for exporting, market roasted and ground quality coffee, find access to prefinancing. Included in the long term goals were the following: obtain organic certification, renovate crop to improve production, and directly export product.

“We are tired of being eaten up by the big guys. We have been swimming upstream, drowning, but you are teaching us how to swim.” We were reminded of the importance for small producers to have access to better markets, such as the fair trade market. Although much is still needed to be improved in fair trade, it is clear that is certainly something that producers see as a viable alternative, not only for the monetary value, but also for the access to information and prefinancing. It was certainly disheartening to hear so many stories of how small producers have learned to deal with the way the majority of companies go about business, but at the same time enlightening and hopeful to have so many people together discussing how to go about making changes.