Life and Faith and the Price of Coffee
Stan G.
Duncan
For several years I used to
travel each summer to Guatemala with a big red-haired farmer in my congregation
named Hugo. He sponsored children through World Vision and took me along to
translate for him. One of his kids was named Elvia and she lived high up the
Ipala volcano in the Chiquimula province, just this side of the Honduran
border. Elvia lived in a dirt floor, one-room home on a wide spot next to the
road with her two parents, three siblings and their families and their three
children, and two neighbor children. Her older brothers and families live with
them because no one can afford to live on their own; the neighbor kids live
with them because their parents died in an accident and Elvia’s family took
them in.
Our first visit was lovely.
Her father, Victor, stayed home to greet us and Hugo gave out toys and clothes
to the kids. We noticed, however, that a new baby, born to Elvia’s older sister
looked frail and thin. She had a greenish tint to her skin and never smiled.
“Bad water,” Victor told us. “And not enough medicines.”
Victor and his family are desperately poor. I asked him one time about
the coffee farm he works on and he gestured far across the valley and up
another mountain. I was amazed. “How far is that?” I asked. He laughed and
shook his head. He didn’t know, but it had to be a three to four-hour walk.
“Every day?” I asked. He laughed again. Of course it was. Why was I so foolish
as to ask?
Coffee is a huge portion of Guatemala Guatemala Guatemala
The next year, Hugo and I returned to Guatemala
When we arrived, however, we found that all the chickens were gone. A
disease had come through. The children had gotten sick and the chickens died.
The little baby was still ill. Though her mother cradled her in her arms and
sang to her silently, the baby stared vacantly into the distance. Her hair was
still thin and yellow.
I asked Victor what had happened. He said he didn’t know. A development
organization had given them medicine and they took it but it was gone and the
baby is still very sick. “Can you afford any on your own?” I asked him.
”No,” he said. “We don’t have the money for the medicines. Last year
the foreman paid me less than he paid me the year before. And this year less
than last.”
“Why is that?”
He shook his head. He didn’t know.
”What will you do?” I asked.
He smiled, but he did not laugh. “I will work harder.”
Victor is not wrong about his
declining pay. In 2001 farmers around Chiquimula were earning 25 quetzales
($6.00) per day but now they earn between 10 and 15 quetzales ($2.50 to
$4.00), which is not enough to survive on. The World Bank estimates that between
thirty to sixty million coffee farmers around the world lost their livelihoods
because of the crisis. Major coffee regions are in tatters. In Colombia Ethiopia
And the “collateral” damage is enormous. Some coffee workers move to
the cities to seek jobs in sweat shops so that North Americans can buy
ten-dollar shirts. Some flee their country seeking a better life, often dying
along the way. Remember the twenty-four Mexicans found suffocated in a boxcar
in Iowa
Others manage to stay on their lands by growing illegal crops. In Colombia US
Still others have turned their plowshares into swords and joined
revolutionary movements. In Chiapas ,
Mexico Colombia Ethiopia Ethiopia
On our way home, Hugo fretted
over how to do more to help his kids. “I can send more money,” he said. “I can
set up a trust, so that whatever happens to me they’ll get help.” Hugo looked as
strong as a bear, but his hips and right thigh were slowly being eaten up with
cancer and he knew that one day he would no longer be able to make the journey
up into Chiquimula. I tried to walk him through what I knew about the causes of
the global crisis and its effects on people like Victor and his family, most of
which Hugo could not help with trusts and more gifts. But in the end he said he
didn’t know anything about that. That was just politics, he said, and he didn’t
get involved with politics.
The causes of the coffee crisis are legion and have more to do with
human sin than “laws” of economics. From the sixties through the eighties there
was an International Coffee Agreement that kept coffee prices at a relatively
stable price, and most farmers, while poor, at least made a living. The U.S. supported the agreement because it kept
poor people in Latin America from getting so hungry that they would consider Cuba Soviet Union , the geopolitical need to feed poor people
declined, so we changed policy. We pulled out of the agreement (effectively
killing it) and almost overnight, new producers jumped into the market and
prices paid to local farmers began declining.
It seems to be an almost-intentional policy among wealthy countries,
and lending institutions like the World Bank, to keep production high and
prices low. It is the basis of the reigning model of economic globalization. During
the nineties the IMF and other regional banks made hundreds of loans to develop
coffee plantations but with each new coffee farm, more coffee was produced,
which drove down prices and drove down farmer incomes.
A dramatic example of this was in the early 1990s when the IMF arranged
massive loans by regional banks to help bring Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam
Corporations can also contribute to the damage. For example, in the
late 1990s, Nestlé, the world’s largest coffee buyer, told its Mexican clients
that it was moving to Vietnam
where labor was cheaper, so Vietnam Mexico
offered to lower prices paid to coffee growers, so Nestlé purchased only 4,500
tones of Vietnam ’s coffee
and otherwise remained in Mexico
In the summer of 2003 I took my last trip to Guatemala
I saw Victor again standing by himself away from the crowd, and I asked
how his coffee farming was going. He smiled but looked ahead at Hugo playing
with the children, including their frail little girl who looked better now, but
still not well. Too much damage had occurred at too early an age for her to
ever be truly healthy. “Mister Hugo loves our children,” he said. “And he wants
to help us. But we can no longer farm here and we are going away.”
”Where?” I asked.
”There are many of us. We cannot farm here and feed our families. We
will ride on the bus to the city where there are jobs in the factories. They
hire men who are strong and work hard.”
I looked at him with dismay. He looked old and weary. He would never be
hired in a factory. What would happen is that his sons would take care of him,
and he would be humiliated.
”We cannot feed our families here anymore,” he said.
On the way home I told Hugo about my conversation with Victor and he
grew silent. Finally he said, “That Victor’s a good man. He’s a hard worker and
doesn’t deserve this.” Hugo had a lot of respect for Victor and it was a shame
that they never got to know each other well because neither could speak the
other’s language. As two old farmers with big families and big hearts they
would have had a lot to talk about.
”I’ve got to send more money,” he said.
”I don’t think that would help,” I said. “Every year they make less
than the year before. You can’t just pay for their whole lives.”
”But they can’t just lose everything.” His face tensed for a moment,
like someone in pain, and he rubbed his thigh. “Tell me again about that fair
trade thing.”
Fair trade coffee is actually just one of many ways that people can help
farmers in Victor’s situation. Oxfam, for example, has promoted a package of
proposals under a “Coffee Rescue Plan,” such as getting roasters to pay higher
wages and reducing the stock of existing coffee. Another campaign worked for
years to get the U.S. U.S.
However, the fair trade movement remains the most accessible way for
most people to feel they are having a direct impact on the crisis, as well as
learning more about it. In a fair trade arrangement, a coffee company will
partner directly with farmer co-ops in developing countries, which eliminates
the “middle people,” and in so doing guarantees a stable living wage. In
addition, to be certified the cooperative must do such things as promote
democratic principles of governance, gender equality, humane working conditions,
and environmental sustainability.
The oldest fair trade company in
By winter Hugo was sick in bed often and by summer he was too frail to
make the trip back to Guatemala
Not long after that our church signed up to join with Equal Exchange to
begin selling Fair Trade products. We put up a big display in the parish hall,
ordered a bunch of their coffee, chocolate, and teas, and have been selling
them on Sundays ever since. I doubt that our little project will ever help
Victor and his family in Chiquimula, who finally had to move away and lost
everything they ever had. But I’m certain we’ve helped other people like them.
And I’m certain that somehow in the mystery of pain and love and life and
death, that Hugo knows about our little coffee display out in the parish hall,
and wherever he is, I think he’s glad.
Reprinted
from Sojourner’s magazine, September, 2005
