Small Farmers. Big Change.

I just arrived at the Hotel Peru in Piura, Peru.

Eight years ago, I stayed at this same hotel (I think I’m actually in the same room) with Keith Olcott, Tom Hanlon Wilde of Equal Exchange, and a group of general managers, store managers, and buyers of various natural foods stores that have strong relationships with Equal Exchange.  We were on our way to La Coyona, one of the communities whose members form part of CEPICAFE’s small farmer coffee cooperative.  At that time, the price of coffee was somewhere around 65 cents a pound.  Equal Exchange however, was paying the then-Fair Trade price of $1.41/pound.  (Today, the price of coffee is at an all-time high, somewhere around $3.00 a pound.)

At a meeting of the co-op, one of the women farmers, Dona Dora, broke into tears and told us that she had never before seen someone who bought her coffee, never mind having a group of folks from the United States come visit her community, spending four days and nights, picking coffee alongside the farmers, breaking for lunch, and then spending the afternoon depulping the coffee beans, washing and laying them out to dry on the patios.

That trip was a memorable one.  We stayed in pairs in the farmers’ homes, ate and worked along side them.  After a morning picking coffee, we broke for lunch.  Our original plan had been to continue picking coffee all afternoon, but one by one, folks in our group began to approach me and tell me they were exhausted.  Could we suspend the afternoon harvest?  When we told the farmers that the “workers were tired”, and were boycotting the afternoon chamba (work period), the farmers had a good laugh.  We weighed out the coffee we had picked in the morning and that brought more good-natured laughs.  How much do we get paid, we wanted to know.  The farmers chuckled, not enough for our lunch, in fact, not even enough for a cup of coffee back home.

We told them about Equal Exchange, how we work, our vision for a future with more equitable trade relations and farmers who are paid more fairly for their work.  They shared stories about their lives, their co-op, and their hopes and visions for the future.  After four days and nights in the community, there were real tears when they gave us a going away party.  I’ll never forget walking up to the community kitchen a few hours before the big despedida (farewell party).  There was Dona Dora, holding the head of a sheep in each hand; one black, one white.  It was for the evening’s soup.  Hold it right there, I told her, I’m going to take your picture and then I’m going to be sick.  She laughed… it was just one of many intimate moments we shared that week.

Today, I’m here at the hotel waiting for my ride to pick me up.  I’m thinking a lot about the folks we brought with us here the last time; Michelle Franklin of La Montanita Co-op and Bob Gerner, who met his wife in Lima on this very trip.   Mostly, I’m remembering Dona Dora and the farmers of La Coyona, the laughs despite all the hard work; and late evenings on the porch, softly sharing stories by candlelight with a night sky full of more stars than I’d ever before seen.  I’m also thinking about friends at the CEPICAFE co-op whose office is nearby: Santiago Paz, Arnaldo Neira, and Jose Rojas, folks deeply committed to improving the quality of life for farmers in northern Peru.  We’ve known and worked with these co-op representatives for close to two decades now.

I won’t be seeing the coffee farmers on this trip; I’m here eight years later with the Oke USA banana team to visit two new small farmer banana coops that we have just begun to build relationships with.  Last year, Bradley and I visited El Guabo, in Ecuador.  This year, Equal Exchange has begun to sell bananas from two additional groups.  Over the next few days, I hope to have some stories to share as Bradley, Nicole, Jessica and I learn more about these banana growers.

Adelante!