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How is your coffee grown




Ignacio Villa wrote:

[stuff deleted]

It is a crime to grow the really profitable crops, but it may be the
only option a campesino  really has. [more deleted]

I think we are going to have to start paying a lot of money for
organic coffee. But we must remember that we are paying for other
things as well:  Peace, birds, healthy people, and hopefully not just
a smart marketing  expert somewhere in the middle.  [end of IV's 
comments]

I have had the privilege of working with Colombian coffee growers in 
Valle del Cauca, in the hills above Popayan.  The area us prime coca 
country, relatively convenient to Cali, and the remarkable thing is 
that the campesinos often prefer coffee to coca culture.

That, in spite of the fact that  'pergamino' coffee (which 
requires a tremendous amount of post-harvest handling, and almost 
always includes a long hike, with a heavy load, to the road) fetches about 
12,000 pesos (roughly US$12) per arroba (12.5 kg).  Coca leaves, on 
the other hand, require only picking, and usually bring about 25,000 
pesos per arroba.

Unfortunately, the guerrilla and narco-terrorista situation has made 
things awfully "hot" in the area, and it is much harder for the 
campesinos to market their coffee or get the organic agronomic 
support they both need and want.  IMO the drug trade and accompanying 
guerrilla activity has done at least as much damage (by destroying 
social and physical infrastructure) as the cafe tecnificado  
("technified coffee") grown at lower elevations where it's harder for 
the narcos and the guerrilla to hide from the government.  I have 
personal experience with this phenomenon in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, and to a 
lesser degree Chiapas.

Diversified polycultures with heavy shade cover and 45-degree slopes 
make for great cover, eliminate government APCs and tanks from the 
equation, and provide pretty reliable food and water.  The issue is 
far more complex than corporate coffee vs campesino coffee.  Each 
country -- heck, each *valley* -- is a different situation.

However, certified organic coffee from Latin America is almost always 
purely campesino coffee.  There's a story behind every bean, and Bill 
Deusing is right, your choice of coffee really does make a 
difference.


 
least as much damage to small-scale coffee production (
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Bart Hall,  National Center for Appropriate Technology
PO Box 3657,    Fayetteville, Arkansas, 72702, USA
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"Restore the real meaning of words, to live in Truth."     Vaclav Havel
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