Here is a report on our visit to La FEM in Nica. All said the visit could not have gone better and we are prepared to buy at least 150 bags of the container that we hope the co-op can purchase. The coffee sample they sent us cupped out at 81.5, I believe. So it is on par with CECOCAFEN's coffee. It also gives us an opportunity to support an emerging group doing amazing work outside of the coffee fields and to be able to tell their story. We found out about the group from Wisconsin Coordinating Committee on Nicaragua's (WCCN) Carlos Arenas. We wanted to meet them and learn more about their work while exploring the possibility of buying their beans. After e-mailing back and forth for a couple of months, we made plans to head to Esteli for 3 days. La FEM is not simply a coffee growing cooperative. Founded in 1996, they organized to work on issues of domestic violence against women, women's health, education, and job training. When we met them we were immediately impressed with their level of organization and their dedication to women's rights as a political and social imperative. They picked us up from the airport in Managua and drove us up to their offices in Esteli. We were able to meet with the office staff and the Development Committee right away. They presented many of the projects that they are working on. One particularly cool one is an alternative school in Condega for young women to learn carpentry, construction, welding, etc. The idea is that this way they will never be dependent on the men-folk to build their houses and maintain them. It also gives them employment opportunities, although this is tougher because men dominate those fields. The meeting ended with all of us reading a piece about the co-optation of world leftists by the forces of capitalism. The authors contended that the left only looks to make neoliberalism more palatable and does not seek to end it. Fair trade was something the authors felt was reformist. It was really cool to have a round table discussion about this with producers and to flesh out why (or if) fair trade is worth its water. La FEM ends all of their Devo Committee meetings with analyzing and discussing political writings. We got the overall impression that all of the women have a great political critique down to the producer level. After getting a good night’s sleep (and a few Cuba Libres) we headed out to a community called Los Llanos to meet with La Cooperativa Cope Mujeres, one of the four cooperatives that are organized under the La FEM umbrella. I believe they have around 132 total growers in the co-ops. They were really great and asked excellent questions about what we do including what price we sell coffee for and why. At one point I had a brain-melt and could not say what I wanted in Spanish. I said so and one of the older women in the co-op grinned and said “That’s okay, I haven’t understood half of what you have said all day.” This got a good laugh. Next we walked down to the house of a grower named Irma who is part of a 5 woman collective called Las Estrellas that is within Cope Mujeres. They are different from most of the other growers in that they work a common piece of land and divide work and income equally. Their land is pretty far from their collection point and from the road as well, so they haul all of their coffee back and forth “por bestia” or on the back of a horse. Last year each woman produced 30 quintales and earned about $250 from coffee sales. This is at above the FT minimum price. They are in the process of cutting down older trees and planting new ones, so they expect their production to grow in the next 3 or 4 years. This was a common situation with the growers we met, so there is room for their one organic container to increase. The FEM co-ops also still have growers in transition (this also available!) in addition to the producers who can fill a container this year. The highlight of the trip was probably spending all of one day on horseback (en bestia?) riding through the mountains with 2 producers from the Las Estrellas Collective (Irma and Maxima) and Juanita Villareyna who works in the office of La FEM and who has been around coffee all of her life (dad is in a PRODECOOP co-op called Miraflor). We spent hours going from field to field meeting growers and getting to know them. We visited the Las Estrellas coffee field as well as their patio/depulping station. They are also growing food and have 5 cows in the area. It was an incredibly beautiful place with the San Francisco mountain looming above. They told us that during the revolution there was a secret Sandinista training camp close by and the area was the scene of fighting and harassment by the Contras. When we returned to Esteli for one final meeting, we were floored by the "interview" that the group gave us. The directivas from all FEM co-ops came to the meeting and they had some serious points for discussion. They sold their coffee to a German group last year under fair trade terms, but were disappointed by the lack of interest on the buyers' part to construct a larger project that extended beyond coffee. The producers wanted to know that Just Coffee and Co-op Coffees are interested in a deeper partnership, one that would build connections between people in our communities and the women of La FEM. They also wanted to make sure that their coffee would not end up at "Wal-Mart" or any other trans-national or unethical stores. They were intent on making sure that we market their coffee in a way that lets people know who they are and what they represent, not simply as “Nicaraguan Fair Trade Coffee”. They also asked about pricing. I gave them the breakdown on the Co-op Coffees pricing and where we are headed with it. As it stands, last year they got $1.51, so $1.56 would be a slight improvement. I stressed that the $1.56 is a minimum and that it could be possible to discuss a slightly higher price depending on quality and other factors. I also told them that if CC cannot meet their “fair price”, that JC would consider paying a “social premium” a la Santa Anita. After discussing possibilities for collaboration we left the room so that they could take a vote on whether they should work with us. I am happy to report that they unanimously chose to partner with us after about 30 minutes of discussion. We toasted our relationship over Flor de Cana and ate a nice meal. We left feeling great about where we were at. I think that we all have a great opportunity here to support and partner with an incredibly important group. I think that the opportunities to make connections between our customers and La FEM are endless and they are totally set up for delegations and visitors. Their hope is to not only sell us coffee, but to help advance their cause by finding folks in the US who they can collaborate with. It all feels like a natural to me. Let’s do this. Word.

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To see latest contract* with FEM please click here *social premium not included in Co-op Coffees contract.