GUATEMALA - Towering inactive volcanoes hover over the glistening body of water that is Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. The sun beams softer than it would on most days, and a cool breeze brushes past the cheeks of the local women washing their embroidered clothes in the lake, which is surrounded by several villages.
Children run up to European tourists offering bracelets, purses, or even just friendly questions. Elderly women, carrying bundles of flowers on their heads walk down cobblestone roads past the small pastel-colored houses, and later stop to chat near the shore.
Miles away in the highlands, away from the tourists and the clear water the sun beats harder on the ground. Only a few cars pass by, stirring up the dust that falls back down on the unpaved ground.
Two women giggle like middle schoolgirls. Their faces stay shaded by the barely standing shack behind them. While blushing at the occasional passersby, the sisters Gloria, 26, and Elvira, 19, keep a watchful eye out for their children playing beside them. A truck passes by and Gloria's head lifts up, she peers through the dust, hoping to see her husband, and then leans back once the dust clears, and only a barren road, her daughter, son and niece are left.
For the three young children, bright-eyed, with dirt-smudged cheeks, the garbage, egg crates and soda bottles are toys and the row of wooden shacks, plantation housing, is a playground. For Gloria and Elvira, the one-room shack, labeled "19" in bright red, is home. Ten months out of the year, they sit next to their home, waiting for their husbands.
They wait for any coins that might jingle in their husband's pockets. They wait for their tortillas that are eaten even after several days of becoming stale. They wait for their children to grow into the trade their fathers work in: coffee. They wait for November and December, the two months when the two sisters wake up earlier than the sun does to spend their days working in the fields. Elvira and Gloria are coffee pickers making less than $1 a day.
The international coffee crisis
The lifestyles of Elvira and Gloria are common in developing countries like Guatemala, one of the Top 10 coffee-producing nations in the world. After oil, coffee is the world's second most valuable commodity exported by developing countries, and is grown in over 50 countries in South America, Central America, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. The International Coffee Organization estimates that nearly 25 million farmers worldwide depend on growing coffee for their economic livelihood.
Meanwhile, the demand for coffee is booming, extending to more than 500 billion cups being served worldwide each year, according to the ICO. Coffee is drank daily by more than half of all Americans over the age of 18 - 107 million people. Students devour it, hitting up coffee shops to fuel late-night studying. Professionals wake up to it, a necessary fuel before heading to long days at work.
But the production still outweighs the demand, and the situation is causing a great imbalance, leaving the major players in the coffee business highly successful and the farmers coping with the disintegrating prices of their crop.
"The main reason prices have gone through the floor is that the International Coffee Agreement fell apart in the late 1980s," said Carmen Deere, an economics professor and development economist at the University of Massachusetts specializing in Latin American agricultural development issues. "The ICA managed an international quota system for producing countries that kept supply more or less in tune with demand at a target price."
Deere said that once the agreement broke down, countries started trying to export more, each trying to gain market share at the expense of the other. Since all of the countries were pursuing the same strategy, the market was flooded with coffee and prices plummeted.
The fall has made prices for coffee on the world market the lowest in 100 years, according to the ICO. The value of coffee retail sales exceeds $70 billion, but coffee producing countries only end up with $5.5 billion in their hands. The result is that coffee, is being paid for by the poorest people in the world.
Small farmers are devastated, and forced to compensate their health and education to survive. Families are pulling their children, specifically girls, out of school. Many can no longer afford basic medicine, and are forced to cut back on food. In Vietnam, according to ICO, farmers are selling their possessions to satisfy debt collectors. In Colombia, coca plantations can now be found in coffee areas, as farmers across the globe are being forced to abandon their crops, and often invest in illegal crops.
The worldwide struggle has reached extremes, as coffee farmers in Mexico have died after abandoning their crops and attempting to reach the U.S. border, and farmers in India are using suicide as their way out. The disaster has been labeled the international coffee crisis, and has people on a global scale searching for a remedy.
Finding a fair trade
While reverting back to an international coffee agreement could release farmers trapped in poverty, the realization of this seems unlikely.
"[One solution is] commodity stabilization agreements among countries - these seek to smooth out prices via supply management that is, international coordination of decisions on how much to produce and sell," said Professor James Boyce, who teaches development economics and environmental economics.
With coffee giants like Kraft, Nestle, Proctor & Gamble, and Sara Lee each having their hands on $1 billion plus in annual sales, according to ICO, and cheap prices being grabbed from across the globe, though, an agreement will be difficult to achieve.
One solution has popped up and is gaining popularity by the coffee cup.
"The main small farmers that have been able to withstand the crisis are those that are part of marketing cooperatives that are supplying 'niche' markets, such as organic coffee producers," said Deere. "This is why the Fair Trade movement in the U.S. is so important and should be expanded."
Fair Trade, an alternative method to insure buyers and consumers quality coffee and provide farmers with appropriate benefits, is gaining attention and has many coffee fiends becoming fair trade-only addicts.
Fair Trade and local businesses
Fair Trade, by seeking to balance the inequalities found in free trade, is made up of several criteria. Small-scale farmers, while receiving a larger sum per coffee pound, are part of democratically run cooperatives. This means the growers themselves are involved in making decisions and communicating with buyers. Middlemen involved in the buying process who often take profit for themselves are taken out of the picture, and farmers have direct access to the market.
But while Fair Trade labels have been popping up in coffee shops around the country, including in coffee chains such as Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts, Dean Cycon of Dean's Beans, a Fair Trade coffee roaster based in Orange, Mass., said there are two forms of Fair Trade hitting the market.
Formal Fair Trade, as he calls it, is when businesses buy coffee beans under Fair Trade regulations. Often, though, only one percent or less of the coffee bought by these companies is certified Fair Trade.
"If it is less than one percent, how much of a commitment are they really making?" said Cycon. "... It is a shame that these businesses stop there - they don't tell the public about the other 99 percent."
The Fair Trade movement, as Cycon calls it, is a much broader commitment, including roasters and importers that buy only Fair Trade, and commit to practices that improve life for farmers. Dean's Beans is a leader of the Fair Trade coffee movement, beginning in 1993 with the goal to model how a for-profit business can work to heal communities that it relates to.
The cooperatives of farmers working with Dean's Beans and other Fair Trade roasters reinvest in community development, often building schools or health care facilities.
"Farmers desperately need the money for community needs," said Cycon.
Maintaining environmental protection plans often goes hand-in-hand with Fair Trade, as Cycon explained that cooperatives that sell Fair Trade are often also already organic coffee producers. These farmers don't use pesticides and typically grow their coffee in the shade of a taller forest canopy, which provides habitat for wildlife, such as songbirds.
"Fair Trade helps farmers to maintain sustainable systems of agriculture," said Calli Genzale, the coffee buyer for People's Market. Genzale explained that farmers not working with Fair Trade are pressured by the market and end up raping their land to produce more plants.
People's Market, a cooperative founded almost 30 years ago on the ideals of socially conscious consumerism, is one of thousands of food retailers to support fair trade.
"It [Fair Trade coffee] can be a little more expensive, but it is a much more quality product," said Genzale. "As more people become aware of the benefits that come from fair and just trade, we can support that, and by being dedicated to that cause we can make a change, just by saying how important that is."
People's Market buys their coffee from Equal Exchange, a cooperative providing retailers with Fair Trade coffee. Currently over 130 coffee roasters and importers all over the country are licensed to sell Fair Trade coffee, according to TransFair USA, the only U.S. Fair Trade certification organization.
Black Sheep, a local Amherst café, also offers Fair Trade coffee bought from Dean's Beans.
"It is important to support sustainable practices, Fair Trade coffee is one we are able to do. It is available now, and we are committed to it," said Deli Manager, Shannon Weiland. "We're not going to make a pretty penny without making sure workers are paid decently."
Weiland said that local Amherst coffee-goers appreciate Fair Trade coffee, and many come to Black Sheep specifically looking for it.
"Students can participate in getting the movement out, students can go into coffee shops and ask for fair trade," said Cycon. "Colleges should make a formal stand ... it's up to students to inform them, it's up to students to say here's what's available and commit to doing something that is really in sync with their values."
But while awareness in many parts of America, like Amherst, is increasing, it is still desperately needed elsewhere. Women like Elvira and Gloria are still waiting, and the challenge to make coffee work for all, still remains.
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