Cafe Campesino ...from crop to cup a Fair Trade

The view from the offices of APECAFORM in San Marcos, Guatemala.

GUATEMALA – Manos Campesinas

'Manos Campesinas' is a second-grade organization which coordinates and exports coffee for Apecaformm and five other groups of small coffee producers from the famed San Marcos region of the Guatemala highlands. In total, Manos Campesinas associates approximately 620 producers.

The main goal of Manos Campesinas is to organize the small farmer, in order to make it possible for them to find direct markets, especially through the export of the coffee, and therefore avoid the middlemen at the local market.

Manos Campesinas requested and recently obtained its inscription in the International Coffee Register from FLO-International, represented in the USA by TransFair. For the past two years, Manos Campesinas has exported our fair trade coffee successfully to the Dutch market.

GUATEMALA – APECAFORMM

Apecaformm (Asociación de Pequeños Caficultores Orgánicos Maya-Mames) was founded on May 12th, 1992, although it was not legalized until 1998. The organisation is situated in 19 communities in the "county" of Tajumulco, San Marcos, in the Southwestern highlands of Guatemala. At this moment, the association has 366 members.

The organization was founded because of two reasons. In the first place, because of the repression during the civil war, the people in this remote area of the country, needed to gather and organise themselves, in order to have some security, finding themselves in between the army and the guerrilla. On the other hand, because of the intermediaires in the region, who did not leave any benefit for the producers, the people had to organise to find alternatives. The main problems with the intermediaires (coyotes) were the low prices, the average interest rate of 10% monthly for anticipated pays and the theft of weight on selling the coffee to them. On top of these two reasons, there was also a lot of migration to Chiapas, México, to work on the big coffee and banana plantations there, in order to earn a living. However, this migration meant that little attention was given to the production process of their own coffee, with bad quality as a result.

The founding of the organisation was mainly promoted by the local priest, Cándido López Ramírez, with the aid of the Programa de Capacitación Campesina (P.C.C.) of the San Marcos Diocese.

The kitchen - early in the morning... At first, the meetings of the organisation were held in the town of Tajumulco, but for the members of Apecaformm this resulted very far away. Some of them had to walk some 8 to 10 hours to get to the town of Tajumulco (for some of them, it was even easier to cross the border, take a bus in México and then go back to Guatemala and take a bus to the town of Tajumulco, instead of crossing the "county" of Tajumulco where there are hardly any bus services).

Therefore, it was decided to establish the office in Pueblo Nuevo, one of the 19 communities which are part of Apecaformm. Pueblo Nuevo is the community with best access: it is only a 2 hours drive from the city of San Marcos. Moreover, for the members of Apecaformm it is also nearer: the members who live farest away have to walk some 6 hours, but the average distance to Pueblo Nuevo is some 2.5 hours.

In order to be organised in a more efficient way, five Centers were established, each of them being in a central position between some of the 19 communities. The Centers have several purposes: coffee is gathered there, before transport to another central place; formation and courses are given in the Centers; the local Board of Directors meet there, etc. The names of the 5 Centers are: Pueblo Nuevo, Toquián Grande, Talux, La Unidad and Malacate.

The 1992-1993 harvest was the first one during which part of the coffee (200 quintales = some 9,000 kilos) was sold through Apecaformm to Fedecocagua. However, being the first experience, it was not a good one, as the payment of the coffee was received until november of next year (being the harvest period from october to january). The next harvest, 1993-1994, contacts were made with Agircafe and 300 quintales (= some 13,500 kilos) were sold to them at a good price. Afterwards, contacts were made with Transcafe, through which the coffee was sold from 1994-1995 until 1996-1997.

A farmer at APECAORMM showing us his tall, organic coffee As from 1996, Apecaformm has been participated in the second grade organisation Manos Campesinas, which was founded officially in 1997. In september 1997, Manos Campesinas received its provisional inscription in FLO's International Coffee Register. Apecaformm was the first organisation of Manos Campesinas who took advantage of this possibility: one container of their 1997-1998 harvest was exported to the Netherlands. Afterwards, of the 1998-1999, 2 containers of their coffee were exported, and in 1999-2000, 4 containers of their coffee were exported (Manos Campesinas exported a total of one container of the 1997-1998 harvest, 4 containers in 1998-1999, and 6 containers in 1999-2000, having sold also coffee of other organisations associated to Manos Campesinas).

The organisational structure of Apecaformm is as follows:

1 General Assembly (highest authority of Apecaformm)

1 Central Board of Directors (which guides and executes the main activities of Apecaformm)

5 "Intercommunal" Board of Directors (one in each of the 5 Centers)

Moreover, much of the work, communication and meetings are done by local "Promoters", who work on agriculture, commercialization and social aspects. In each of the 5 centers there are 3 Promoters. Apart from that, the P.C.C. and Manos Campesinas are giving technical assistance on agriculture (promoting organic coffee), formation, gender and commercialization (with an emphasis on export).

At this moment, the members of Apecaformm produce between 1,500 and 2,000 quintales of green coffee (between 4 and 5 containers). All of their coffee is SHB and certified organic, through Mayacert, with a co-certification of BCS Oko Garantie of Germany. The total of their coffee is commercialized through Manos Campesinas Apart from coffee, other products are also produced in association with the coffee, for instance corn, beans, bananas, oranges, etc.

Exporting their coffee through Manos Campesinas at the fair trade market has been quite profitable for the Apecaformm members. For instance, last harvest (1999-2000), the average price the Apecaformm members received for each quintal of parchment coffee was Q.714.05 (some US$ 92.75), whereas the average price per quintal of parchment coffee in the organisations of Manos Campesinas which did not export their coffe was between Q.550.00 and Q.600.00 (about US$ 71.50 to US$ 78.00).

The biggest challenges Apecaformm, as well as the other organisations associated to Manos Campesinas, faces at this moment is increasing their harvest through technification and optimization of their cultivation methods, and getting prefinance for their export. For the 2000-2001 crop, Manos Campesinas managed to obtain a loan from EcoLogic, a US-based company, with which the 5 containers Apecaformm exports of its 2000-2001 crop can be prefinanced.