After the ICO’s May meetings finished in London, ICO members acknowledged this week that it was important for small-scale family coffee farmers, who produce of the majority of the world’s coffee, to make a decent living. However, the ICO failed to come up with specific proposals to solve the ongoing economic crisis facing 25 million of these producers.
“The ICO is talking about addressing issues of environmental and social responsibility – but small farmer representation within the ICO is the only way to effectively address the economic inequities faced by small-scale family coffee farmers and farm workers in the supply chain,” said Dagoberto Suazo, head of the La Central coffee cooperative and Honduran delegate to the ICO.
“Farmers’ voice in these debates is critical in creating true economic sustainability in this sector – ensuring farmers can cover the cost of their coffee production and meet the essential necessities of life such as providing food, education and basic healthcare for their families.”
The ICO first began discussing the future of its operating charter, the International Coffee Agreement (ICA), in 2005. This meeting was a chance to make real progress in agreeing on a new charter that would make solving the world coffee crisis a real priority. However, talks continue to move at a snail’s pace.
“We are asking that small-scale family coffee farmers and farm workers have equal representation in the ICO’s advisory forums,” said Seth Petchers, coffee lead for Oxfam’s Make Trade Fair campaign. “Corporate interests are represented and have dedicated forums for discussion within the ICO – so it’s only reasonable that the people who grow most of the world’s coffee also have a say in the process.”
The lack of progress at these ICO proceedings was further reflected by the organization’s refusal to allow Oxfam to attend the meeting via temporary observer status. While Oxfam was allowed to make a presentation to the council, there was no opportunity for the organization to engage in critical dialogue.
Oxfam, an international development organization, works all over the world with civil society organizations representing coffee farming communities and their concerns. Oxfam is in a unique position to propose tangible, constructive solutions based on its relationships with these communities and organizations representing small coffee farmers.
At this week’s meetings, several ICO delegations submitted statements that emphasized the need to work toward a more sustainable coffee sector, information sharing within the supply chain, and access to credit for farmers– all issues that impact the ability for small coffee farmers to make a decent living and support the urgency for small-scale coffee farmer and farm worker voice within the ICO. However, no commitments were made on these topics.
For more information, contact Helen DaSilva at +617-331-2984 or hdasilva@oxfamamerica.org. To learn about Oxfam’s recommendations for the renewal of the ICA, read the Grounds for Change report at www.oxfamamerica.org/ico.
]]>Last September, coffee farmers from seven countries traveled to Salvador, Brazil, to add their voices to the World Coffee Conference, a special meeting of the International Coffee Organization. The ICO is an intergovernmental organization that brings together coffee-producing and coffee-consuming countries.
The World Coffee Conference kicked off Oxfam America's campaign to influence the next International Coffee Agreement. That agreement was a key issue at the ICO meeting in London this past week, but no specific proposals were forthcoming to solve those ongoing economic problems.
Oxfam has been working to make the agreement better reflect the needs and concerns of small-scale farmers who are struggling with the changing face of the coffee crisis.
"I wonder if the participants at the World Coffee Conference know what the coffee crisis has truly meant for producers," said Pradeep Nandipur of the Karnataka Growers Federation in India.
"In my region, farmers committed suicide because they could see no way out of their mounting debt. They had no way to repay it because their income was gone."
To survive these challenges, farmers and farmworkers said they require some stability, the kind that only comes through long-term capital investment, access to markets, and political representation.
When the international price of coffee dropped to historic lows in 2001, family farmers in places like Guatemala and Ethiopia fell into crisis.
With a glut of coffee on the market, many couldn't find buyers for their crops. Others couldn't pull in enough profits to pay off their farming expenses and feed their children.
Many farmers who survived the price drop were members of fair trade cooperatives. By agreeing to certain principles, such as transparency with members, democratic elections, and setting aside a percentage of profits for the community, cooperative members received a guaranteed minimum price for their crop.
"When the prices were low, fair trade was the best market we had," said Moise Coz, administrator of the IJATZ coop in Guatemala.
Farmers who were part of fair trade cooperatives said they made enough money to buy food, clothe and educate their children, and buy more farmland. Some coops even had enough money to buy mills to process their own coffee or to help local schools buy chalkboards and desks.
But even as farmers were counting the benefits of their fair trade premium, the crisis was changing. The price of coffee began to recover, creating competition between the coops and local middlemen representing importers or mega-roasters.
Some farmers now find themselves in an awkward position. They can sell their coffee to their cooperative for less and wait a few months for payment. Or they can sell to middlemen, called coyotes, willing to pay a higher up-front price.
The cooperatives try to remain competitive by using some of their savings to pay the difference between their price and the coyotes' price. But many fall short.
They need to use their savings to pay the administrative staff or electricity bill. In the end, the best thing cooperatives can do is try to remind farmers that what goes up must come down. When the international price drops, the cooperatives will be the only ones offering a price safety net and specialized training.
"We explain why they aren't receiving the money up front. We have costs to pay off," states Guillermo Campa, President of the IJATZ cooperative.
"We tell them that they need to think about the future. Think about the price dropping like it did in the past. If they work with fair trade, they can have a stable price."
But that argument doesn't always work. "People who live day to day can't just depend on what happened in the past," said Carlos Reynoso, manager of Manos Campesinas cooperative in Guatemala.
So how do coffee cooperatives respond? How do they get their members to sell them enough coffee so they can fulfill their contracts with importers and roasters? And how does the International Coffee Organization help?
Stronger cooperatives are more competitive in a fluctuating market. In order to get there, cooperatives need access to debt refinancing, low-interest loans for working capital, long-term capital investment, information, and markets. With a voice at the ICO, small-scale farmers and their cooperatives can advocate for these interests.
At the World Coffee Conference, Oxfam America and its partners presented coffee producing and consuming countries with a declaration articulating the needs of small-scale farmers and their cooperatives. The declaration calls for these issues to be addressed in the next International Coffee Agreement.
This is just one component of a strategy to give the world's 25 million coffee farmers a real chance to do what they've done for generations—and turn a profit that makes it all worthwhile.
"We need to take advantage of this historic opportunity," said Seth Petchers, Coffee Program Manager at Oxfam America. "We can use these negotiations to put measures in place that better address what these farmers face."
]]>The discussions on the future of the International Coffee Agreement present an historic opportunity to address the ongoing crisis facing smallholder coffee farmers and farmworkers by contributing to sustainable coffee supply chains. At the 2nd World Coffee Conference in September 2005 several organizations presented the International Coffee Organisation and its delegates with the Carta de Salvador—the Salvador Declaration, which stressed the ongoing effects of the coffee crisis facing small-scale family farmers and farmworkers. This paper calls on International Coffee Organization members to support small-scale farmers and farmworker organizations by ensuring space for their direct participation in international debate, creating mechanisms that enhance the availability of market information to small-scale farmers, and maximizing opportunities to develop cohesive international strategies to provide technical support, access to credit, and direct access to markets.
]]>The sound of the rain woke him up. He nudged his wife, asking if she heard it too. Pregnant and tired, she told him to go back to sleep.
"When I woke up again, I opened the door and mud was everywhere. All the kids were screaming," Carlos recalled in February. "We ran from the house, with mud up to our waists."
As the Ajznels sprinted for shelter, the rain poured. Boulders tumbled. Mudslides cut through the earth. Hurricane Stan unloaded on Guatemala, reworking the landscape, and leaving some of its deepest scars on the country's small-scale coffee farms.
Many farmers, like Ajznel, lost their homes and the means to support their families. Coffee trees were infected by fungus, or buried under mud and rocks. Individual coffee farmers said the storm wiped out between 25 and 100 percent of their coffee production.
Five months after the storm, Oxfam America staffers traveled to Guatemala to assess the damage and determine what it would take to rebuild the lives of small-scale coffee farmers.
"Looking at the devastation, you realized what used to be there, that it was someone's income. Then you thought about what it would take to bring it all back," said Seth Petchers, Oxfam America's coffee program manager.
Guatemala's volcanoes and rolling hills provided a perfect funnel for the rain and mud from the hurricane. Much of what was dislodged finally settled on coffee farming communities, located in the high elevations that produce quality beans.
Members of an Oxfam partner cooperative in La Unidad, a village at the base of a mountain in the Tajumulco region, found their community split down the middle by the hurricane. Two concrete bridges that had connected the village collapsed during the storm, taking some riverside homes with them.
"When it started to rain and the river swelled, we left our house knowing that something was going to happen," said Lidia Perez Chavez, 22, a member of the APECAFORM cooperative. "We only took the children and the clothes we were wearing. Afterward, we had lots of trouble. We could only eat once a day because we had so little firewood."
In San Lucas Tolimàn, a community near Lake Atitlan, Don Antonio Chavajay Ixtamer estimated that 80 percent of his land was affected. Walking through his property, he pointed to newly formed ravines, uprooted shade trees, and coffee trees buried under mud, boulders, and silt.
Ixtamer, who is the president of a coffee coop called La Voz, said he intends to replant. But it will take at least four years for the new trees to bear fruit. And while he and his family are doing the recovery work on their own land, they'll lose out on the supplemental income they would have earned doing off-season work in the city or on someone else's farm.
But at least Ixtamer has some coffee trees left to harvest. Some farmers lost everything and were forced to flee to Mexico and the United States.
What will it take to recover? Farmers say they need to replace what was lost—and prepare for future disasters.
Oxfam America will use a $100,000 grant to help partners repair damaged land, provide technical assistance for rehabilitation projects, repair equipment, and offset the dues some coops can't pay because of reduced profits after the hurricane.
The relief work will be coordinated through partner organizations Manos Campesinas and CRECER, which will hire appropriate staff, help farmers plant coffee saplings, make and spread organic fertilizer, build drainage barriers, treat water, and repair coffee mills.
It will mean a lot of work during the next few months. But for many small-scale coffee farmers, there's simply no alternative.
"We need to replant," said Don Juan Tacaxoy Botan, president of ANMSI coop. "We don't have any other option."
]]>But I'm luckier than most. Just as the shortest, coldest days of winter hit Boston, the coffee cherries in Central America and Ethiopia begin reaching their peak red color. That's when I get to do my favorite work—visiting with Oxfam's coffee partners in Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Ethiopia. Each coffee harvest, I reconnect with the farmers who Oxfam America campaigns for back home.
Whenever I visit with coffee farmers and explain that I've come to learn more about their lives I'm always greeted warmly. These visits get me motivated, although, if truth be told, the visits aren't always uplifting.
This harvest I visited a farmers' cooperative in southern Ethiopia. Though I was welcomed by a group of 15 farmers and their families, the conversation was grim. The coop had fallen on hard times. Though the world price of coffee was up, the families I met were struggling to make it on $300 a year. In two hours there wasn't a single smile on anyone's face and I drove away struggling to imagine how these people were going to make it.
Just a few weeks ago I returned from Guatemala. The volcanic mountains surrounding Lake Atitlan create some of the best coffee-growing conditions in the world. Yet last October the farmers I met with saw Hurricane Stan wash enough mud and boulders down from these mountains to cover houses and wipe out coffee farms. I met people who lost it all and found myself struck by the fact that these farmers—people who were already struggling to get by—were struggling even harder this year because they were on the wrong side of geographic circumstance.
But both in Ethiopia and Guatemala I was amazed to find—as I always do—something inspiring. This harvest, my favorite experience was a walk with Don Antonio Cavajay Ixtamer, president of the cooperative La Voz que Clama en el Desierto (the voice that cries out in the desert). Antonio took my colleagues and me on a walk through his coffee farm where Antonio estimates 80 percent of his land was damaged. We saw coffee trees buried in infertile silt and stumps marking the places where healthy coffee trees once stood.
At the far end of Antonio's farm we emerged from the trees left standing into an area that looked like a dry river bed covered with boulders, some larger than Antonio. He explained that this area had been covered with coffee trees but was inundated with rocks and mud that slid down the mountain during Stan.
It was hard to fathom the force that was required to do such damage to the farm and I asked Antonio if he would ever be able to recover the land. Without missing a beat, Antonio replied "Si se puede. Si se puede." (Yes we can. Yes we can.), and proceeded to explain how he and his sons would remove the rocks, fill trenches, and build stone barriers to divert water before the rainy season begins in May.
Antonio hopes to have the recoverable portions of his land replanted within three years. I don't know whether he'll be successful, but if he falls short, it won't be for lack of motivation and hard work.
Some won't be successful—I know that. But so many of the coffee farmers I meet share the same spirit as Antonio that I've returned to Boston inspired and ready to do what I can to support them. As a result of my trip, Oxfam will provide farmers with $100,000 they can use to help rebuild after Stan.
Despite all the challenges I see, there are farmers who don't give up. As long as they're willing to fight, then I'm willing to fight, too. Some wins are big, some incremental, and sometimes we don't win at all. But as long as Antonio and other coffee farmers are saying "Si se puede" then "Si se puede" it is for me, as well. Yes we can. We have to.
]]>This report assesses the current state of the coffee crisis and calls on the US government to empower small-scale farmers and farm workers to take full advantage of the improved market conditions. With greater access to rural finance, technical assistance programs, and participation in international debate, small-scale, family farmers and farm workers will be less vulnerable to the boom and bust cycles of the market.
]]>In this report, Oxfam calls for the major players in the coffee industry to support a Coffee Rescue Plan to overcome the current crisis and create a more stable market. The report analyzes the origins and effects of collapsed coffee prices and urges American consumers to join Oxfam in bringing relief to farmers and a change to the system.
]]>"It's good to see Starbucks finally coming to the table, which they initially refused to do," said Seth Petchers, coffee lead for Oxfam International's Make Trade Fair campaign. "Starbucks now says it won't block the initiative, but what it hasn't said is how it will actively support Ethiopia's stated efforts to obtain trademarks for its coffees which will bring added benefits to poor farmers."
After initially dismissing Ethiopia's plan to trademark its specialty coffees, Starbucks, which came under international pressure from campaigners, has now said it is ready to recognize Ethiopia's right to pursue this path.
Ethiopian officials have said Ethiopia will continue to pursue the trademarking and licensing initiative and hopes to enter in to partnership with Starbucks and other companies through negotiated licensing agreements. These would recognize Ethiopia's ownership of the coffee names and allow them to get a fairer share of the profits for their producers. Ethiopia has obtained a trademark in the US for its Yirgacheffe coffee.
Oxfam and other partners have supported the trademarking initiative as a way to pass down more of the value of coffee sales to poor producers who typically receive a tiny percentage of final sale price, and struggle to make a living.
On February 15 Starbucks announced initiatives to benefit coffee farmers in Ethiopia including funding for a quality improvement project and increased coffee purchases in East Africa. While the additional purchases and support are beneficial, these initiatives fail to address the fundamental rights issue at hand. What the Ethiopians have asked coffee roasters to do is recognize Ethiopia's right to control and share in the value of the country's specialty coffee names through trademarks.
"As a market leader, Starbucks should take concrete steps that the Ethiopian government has called for, including reaching an agreement that recognizes Ethiopia's legal ownership of its coffee names," continued Petchers.
]]>"Seeking Common Grounds" builds on policy proposals first made in May, 2006 by Oxfam and 12 coffee-producing and civil society organizations from around the globe. The overarching themes of those reforms include enhancing participation by small-scale coffee farmers in the international debate; promoting economic, social, and environmental sustainability; and providing tools for small-scale farmers to compete in challenging and changing markets.
The new Oxfam report notes that while "the price of coffee has improved since its 2001 crash, many small-scale farmers and farmworkers lack the resources to take advantage of the improved market conditions and remain vulnerable to the boom and bust cycles of the coffee market. Far from an occasion for complacency, the current debate on the future of the ICA should be an opportunity to affect urgently needed changes."
The working group is scheduled to meet again in March, and will present its final recommendations in May, 2007.
]]>The formal Letter of Intent between Green Mountain -- a major coffee roaster and distributor in the US -- and Ethiopia "is an initiative made in good faith between a major company, the government, and a national stakeholder group that includes farmer cooperatives," said Raymond C. Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America.
"Developing countries need greater control over their own agricultural markets in order to negotiate a fair return from the quality and reputation of their products. Coffee companies that expect to thrive in a global market should follow Green Mountain's lead," Offenheiser said. "We hope that Green Mountain will continue to break new ground toward Ethiopia's ultimate goals."
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