Post date: Jan 12, 2013 3:10:46 AM
(Photos are here and individually linked in the text below.)
This coffee plantation is hard to reach. Perched on the south flank of the Santa Clara volcano, in the province of Chinandega, Nicaragua. (There are volcanic cones or craters everywhere I look in western Nicaragua.)
The plantation is run by a cooperative. Many of the coop members remember when it was owned by a private landlord who visited on weekends. The owner left but the workers stayed and continued to grow coffee. They found it hard to sell and asked CDCA for help. Because they could not afford to buy chemicals, their farm had become "organic" and CDCA helped them become certified.
The trip to El Porvenir is an adventure, as much for the travel as for the facilities and members of the coop. Situated on the side of a volcano (the nearby San Cristóbal is steaming furiously) means the trip is uphill, and the road generally runs through a riverbed. This makes travel impossible in heavy rain and very dusty in the dry season.
While our two older Land Cruiser "ambulances" made the entire trip, the 25 students in the bus (and one doctor) had to transfer in the area called "Las Marias" to a single-axle trailer towed by a large farm tractor.
Speaking of the tractor, until two years ago the only water at El Porvenir was delivered from Las Marias in this trailer - 200 gallons per day - or captured rain from the roof. This was not really enough for the more than 200 residents but the cost of diesel fuel put a limit on their water use in the dry season.
Several years ago a group of engineers from Bucknell designed and found funding to construct a long pipeline, dig a well, and install a pump. The cost of fuel still limits their water use to 2 gallons per person per day (about one flush of a toilet) but it is a big improvement for cooking and washing. [Details see:http://www.bucknell.edu/x49739.xml] If they can get electricity from the power grid (which is still $20,000 away) they will be able to afford more water.
About 70 men work from six to noon every day in the plantation clearing weeds, planting new coffee shrubs (and some cacao trees), controlling pests organically, and fertilizing organically. During the month of harvest at the end of the rainy season up to 200 people pick the crop. Temporary workers sleep in the dormitory, which appears to be cubby holes about four feet high and six feet wide - four men or one family to a hole. Some of the students were aghast at such small, crowded living quarters. One old man lives year-round in a cubby. He weaves the bamboo baskets used for the harvest and each picker is required to buy a new basket from him each year.
The outer part of the coffee berries are removed in the "beneficio" and the beans dried in the sun.
When we visited in January about forty (mostly women) members were picking out the 5% deformed or cracked beans - which are used by the members or sold locally to JHC. The crop is sold to the US.
After all expenses are paid - diesel fuel being a big one - the profit is divided among the members according to the number of hours they worked in the year.
The community has a school (since 2004) for about 70 students. The primary teachers are graduates of this school and the secondary teachers bicycle(!) up from a neighboring village each week.
JHC provides medical services once a month - using a vacant storeroom for examination on a wooden table. They also provide medicines for the tiny pharmacy.
We found it very hard to believe that people would choose to live in such difficult conditions. However they do control their own working conditions and the alternatives could be much worse.